Dungeons and Dragonborn (Philowen Aster)
by Bowser Jr's Descendant
Summary: A magical accident sends the Drow warrior Drizzt Do'Urden to Skyrim, where he joins forces with a Bosmer woman, Ravenlight...whose destiny just might be as strange and as adventurous as his own!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Stranger**

He had no idea where he was. He might have guessed it was Icewind Dale; the temperature was almost correct. But the landscape was different: less icy, less windy...and considerably more beautiful. Small red, blue, and purple flowers nodded in the cool breeze. Trees swished in the distance. The crisp air smelled of greenery and snow from the not-distant mountains.

Drizzt Do'Urden took a deep breath, trying to let his head clear. He grimaced at a whiff of something dead upwind and rubbed his temples in an attempt to banish a faint but nagging headache. He had no idea where he was or what had happened; but he had a more than sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the explosion at the wizard's camp he'd been passing ten minutes ago.

_Mages_, he thought irritably. Of course whatever happened over there would target the unwary passerby. Though, he considered, he was probably being unfair. Chances were that if the explosion had sent him to...wherever this place was, it had done the same thing—or worse—to them. A rabbit scurried past and halted for a moment, sniffing. He smiled down at it, not surprised when it took fright and scampered away. And I could have been sent to a worse place. He looked up at the high wall of cliffs to the west of him, wondering what lay beyond them, then turned and looked in the other directions. The open land beckoned, but...

That was when he noticed the road a short way away. Eyebrows arching, he strode down through the rough grass off the hill, and stepped onto it, looking up and down it. Neither way promised anything immediately at the end, but—his eyes narrowed as he looked back. An ominous form circled a mountain to the south. Drizzt's lips tightened. Dragons. North it is, then. If there was one thing he didn't want to have to face, alone and out of his element in a strange new land, it was a dragon. He turned back to the north and strode along the road.

As he walked, the odor of decay he had noticed earlier grew stronger. He stopped, looking around and wrinkling his nose. "What in the world?"

It wasn't the only smell. There was a sort of...it wasn't quite a musk, but definitely an animal odor, underlying the stench of decayed flesh. Suddenly cautious, Drizzt drew his scimitars and left the road, approaching the source of the smell.

Some distance away from the road and nestled near the bank of a lazy-looking river stood a small house. Both odors definitely emanated from it. He gritted his teeth, suddenly guessing what had happened there. "That poor fellow," he whispered. "Likely a bear, judging from that smell."

He noticed a series of tracks in the soft earth and knelt down to study them. Almost at once, he frowned. They weren't bear prints. In fact, they looked more like a panther—though he couldn't think of a panther that large and heavy...

Instinct alone got him out of the way as the culprit, a massive saber cat whose head came up almost to his shoulder, lunged out of the doorway and dove at him. Drizzt clutched at his scimitars and wheeled, slashing at the monstrous creature. He managed to score a couple of hits, but neither one sank as deeply as he needed. The beast's thick fur deflected all but the most direct blows.

Angered by the cuts, the saber cat slashed at him, its paw moving shockingly fast. Aided by his enchanted anklets, Drizzt dodged the first two strokes, but took the third on his hip. He staggered. His mail coat had turned the beast's claws, but not the force of the blow. He struck again, this time inflicting a longer cut on the creature's face. It roared, lunging at him in fury. Desperate, he dashed back, trying to avoid claw and fang.

The cat was canny and dangerous, its coat striped with scars from battles with man and beast. It had dealt with many who had tried to oust it from its chosen lair, some more skilled than others. This challenger was faster and more nimble than the Nords it usually caught; but it had eaten Elves before, and knew how to take them down. It slapped again, lower, and caught the fighter on the lower thigh.

Drizzt bit back a cry as the claws ripped into him, sinking through his leather pants. He staggered, whipping his scimitars in a blur to try and keep the cat off. It roared in fury, backing off a few steps as Twinkle and Icingdeath opened another set of wounds on its face and neck. Then, maddened by the scent of blood, it charged in again.

Drizzt fought desperately, trying to keep it off him. The huge cat struck fast and often, its blows unpredictable and vicious. A swift three-part strike to the chest—again, partially foiled by his mithril coat—slammed into him like a hammer, and he felt two ribs give way. Another swipe came higher, pushed past the scimitar he held up, and tore across his face. Half-blinded by the flow of blood, he tried to stab the saber cat in the mouth, somehow missed, and gouged it in the shoulder. Again it backed off, and—staggered.

It roared, turning slightly, then staggered again. Drizzt, gasping from pain, struggled to stay on his feet. This time he heard the whish, thwack! as a third arrow whipped down from somewhere above and to the west. The saber cat roared again, the sound mixed with pain and frustration. It staggered a third time, this time from...weakness.

The fourth arrow sent it crashing to the ground. Feebly, it tried to rise once more, then fell back, the wild light in its eyes dimming. Drizzt tried to stand, then fell back to his knees, gasping as his leg and chest screamed at him for trying.

"Don't move!"

Puzzled, he turned, trying to find the source of the clear, female voice. Then he frowned as he noticed a flash of greenish-gold, halfway up the nearly-sheer cliff face across the river. It slithered back and forth, moving in a zigzag line downward.

"Don't move!" the stranger called again. "You're losing too much blood. I'm going to help you!"

"How are you doing that?" He rose again, his head whirling. Something told him he shouldn't do that, now with these kinds of wounds, but his mind wasn't really...working correctly...

His injured leg gave out beneath him, and he collapsed, falling directly onto his wounded side. A rush of pain smothered him, and he blacked out.

* * *

Soothing warmth filled him, working its way through his body. A light touch rested on his injured side for a moment, and he could feel the ribs straightening and knitting together. The touch moved from his side to his face, brushing across the gashes inflicted by the cat's claws, then down to his torn leg. Drizzt stirred and opened his eyes.

"Ah, you're awake."

The strange voice spoke again. He realized suddenly that he was smelling food, and tried to sit up. A hand on his chest stopped him. "Don't move too much yet. You lost a great deal of blood. Here." She put a cup to his lips. "Just sip at this; it's strong."

It was strong—but good. A warming spiced wine that coursed through his veins and into his head. "Unf. No more, I think."

"Not on an empty stomach." The stranger moved away from him, and he heard dishes clattering. In a moment, she returned, holding a bowl. "Think you can eat by yourself? The first time I took those kinds of wounds, I was weaker than a newborn puppy for a day or so."

"This isn't the first time for me." He managed to push himself up. "Ouch." He reached for the bowl. As she handed it to him, he saw her clearly for the first time.

She was slender, about as tall as he was, and surprisingly beautiful, her trim body concealed beneath the greenish-golden armor he had seen on the cliff. A helmet sat on the table nearby, made of the same stuff as her armor. She smiled at him as he took the bowl from her, rose lips curling up. Thick black hair, plaited away from her narrow face, accented her pale skin and set off her amber eyes.

"Welcome back to the world of the living," she said calmly, sitting back on her heels. "When you collapsed, I wasn't sure you were going to make it. But this wasn't the first time I've poured healing energy into someone who'd fallen, hoping to find a breath or a heartbeat for my power to take onto."

"I suppose I owe you my life," Drizzt said, a bit cautious. This wasn't the first time he'd been in trouble, or even in mortal danger. Usually, though, the one who helped him had been a friend already—often a close friend. Not a complete stranger.

The woman just shrugged. "It's easy for that to happen here in Skyrim. You're not the first I've aided...and there's nothing to say I won't owe my life to you somewhere along the line."

"Skyrim. Is that the name of this world?"

She tilted her head to the side, puzzled. "The name of the world is Nirn. Skyrim is just the country." She looked out the shattered door, her face growing dreamy. "Skyrim; realm of the north."

Drizzt looked around at the rough walls around them. "Where are we?"

"Inside the cabin that saber cat had staked out." The woman chuckled wryly. "It doesn't smell as bad as some places I've come across, and I didn't dare try to move you further, not as torn up as you were. At the very least, this place has a roof and blocks some of the wind." She looked at him again. "I haven't introduced myself, have I? My name is Ravenlight, formerly of Cothy'rim."

"Drizzt Do'Urden." He inclined his head to her, not wanting to test his sore ribs further. "Why formerly of Cothy'rim?"

Ravenlight laughed softly. "Because now I am of Skyrim, without limits or hesitation. And I have a new name...a defining name." She stood and walked over to the door. "Eat and rest up, Drizzt Do'Urden. I'm going to skin that saber cat; pelt won't be worth much, but I can always use the leather." She paused and looked back at him. "Unless you want it."

He shrugged. "What would I do with it? I'm a fighter, not a furrier or a smith."

"There's nothing to say you can't be both." Ravenlight smiled oddly as she spoke, then walked outside.

Drizzt looked after her, wondering what she meant. Then he looked down at his bowl. Venison stew, thick and hearty. He took a bite and whimpered a little, wondering why nothing he had eaten before had tasted this good. Then his stomach growled loudly, making him wonder if, perhaps, the fact that he hadn't eaten for nearly twenty-four hours had something to do with it. He dug in.

* * *

Ravenlight stood in the doorway to the cabin, looking out at the falling night. Despite a finger of selfish annoyance muttering to the contrary, discovering the stranger had not disrupted any plans. It helped to be just out wandering more or less aimlessly, she mused, rocking back on her heels. Besides which, she didn't like traveling at night. It was good to have an excuse to pass the night under a roof—especially if she was right in assuming that the gathering clouds meant rain later on.

"Is there a problem?"

Startled, she turned and looked back inside. The stranger—Drizzt, he had called himself—was sitting upright, still favoring his right side. He looked a little worried.

"Oh—no, there's no problem." She walked over and sat down on the chair, forcing herself not to grimace at the bloodstains in the wood. "Though I will admit, I rarely stay in one place for long—at least, outside a city."

"Oh." He shrugged a little. "I'm the same way. I'm sorry if I've held you up."

"You really haven't." Ravenlight shook her head. "I don't have any particularly urgent tasks at the moment. To be honest, all I've been doing for the past few days is exploring. Wandering." She leaned back in the chair. "I probably should rest a little more regularly. I tend to push myself pretty hard."

"Was there somewhere you were heading?" He started to stand.

"Give yourself at least tonight to rest up and heal completely." Ravenlight leaned over and gently pushed him back down. "And yes, I was heading in the direction of a bandit hideout, but there's no rush. They've kept the thing I've been asked to retrieve for at least three years; it'll wait a few more days. I don't mind waiting a little while for you to heal up." She paused. "Besides which, I don't feel exactly...right leaving you out here on your own. If you didn't even know the name of the country—didn't even know the name of the world..." She shook her head. "I knew virtually nothing about Skyrim when I arrived, but I knew where I was and what the general topography of the place was." She hesitated then, looking him over. "And you...I've never seen anyone quite like you before."

"Really?" He looked skeptical.

"It's true." She had been trying not to be obvious about admiring him—though she had been able to look her fill while she was hauling him into the cabin and healing him. But it was hard not to watch him, especially now that he was awake. He was the most striking creature she'd ever seen, with jet-black skin, shining lavender eyes, and hair as white as snow. "I guessed you were a sort of dark elf; you're clearly Elf, and only the Dunmer have dark skin. But I've never even heard of a Dunmer with your coloring; and it's not wise for someone so different to be out and alone." She looked around. "Skyrim is beyond troubled these days; there's a civil war going on, dark magic users and bandits are taking advantage of all the chaos, and on top of everything else, the dragons are coming back." She grimaced. "With a vengeance."

"Coming back?" Drizzt frowned. "Where did they go?"

"They were all killed." Ravenlight shifted her weight, deciding not to reveal details about her...unusual bloodline. "I spoke extensively with one of the last members of the Blades, an elite warrior group that had killed off the dragons way back when. The dragon king, Alduin, has come back; he's bringing the others back to life."

Drizzt leaned back, stunned. "I have heard of some wild things in my life, but never anything as wild as that."

"I didn't either. Until she and I went to the site of a dragon tomb and saw it happen." She shuddered. "He knew I was there. That blasted—" Ravenlight closed her eyes. "Ugh. That's something I still have nightmares about."

Drizzt was silent for a moment, sipping at the tankard of spiced wine she had given him earlier. Then he glanced over at her again. "You're an Elf as well, aren't you?"

She smiled at him. "Yes. I'm Bosmer—a wood-elf. We're a sort of...in-between. We're not like the Dunmer, who are coming to Skyrim to escape the Ashplagues in their homeland, Morrowind; but we're also not like those pestiferous high-and-mighty Altimer—" she spat the word— "who think they're so much better than the rest of the world and are willing to tear it apart to prove it."

"I take it you don't like the Altimer?"

Ravenlight's eyes gleamed with remembered pain. "Let's just say, I have reason both old and new to dislike them. Greatly." She worried at the strap of her pack, looking to the side. _That poor prisoner; Thronnir. And Malborn...brave fool. I just wish he'd hung back long enough for me to take that blasted troll on._ She sighed and looked back to him. "I'm sorry; I don't mean to burden you with my troubles. You've certainly got enough of your own to worry about." She stood up. "We'll keep talking about this in the morning, and decide what to do. Get some sleep. You'll be in condition to travel by tomorrow."

Drizzt stretched out on the rough bed. "You're certain?"

Ravenlight smirked at him. "I know my recipes, my herbs, and my powers. You'll be healed come daylight."

* * *

She really knew what she was talking about. Drizzt woke up the following morning just as the sun peeked over the rim of the horizon. He rolled out of the rough bed and stopped, remembering the fight of the day before, and wondering suddenly if it had actually happened. He stretched, twisted, bent in every direction he could think of.

There was no pain at all—not even a lingering ache. _This is amazing. Ravenlight may be one of the best healers I've ever met._

He walked outside and stopped, alarmed. Ravenlight stood, staring glassily off to the south. She leaned against the wall of the hut, unmoving, barely seeming to breathe. Cautiously, he touched her arm. "Ravenlight?"

Light returned to her eyes, and she turned to look at him. "What? Oh, Drizzt." She straightened, grunting a little as stiff muscles protested. "How are you feeling?"

"Marvelous." He paused. "Better than I've felt for some time, actually. There's no pain at all." He eyed her. "How did you do that?"

She smirked again. "Herbs, a good recipe, good night's sleep, and a generous application of healing magic. I've had to use the combination on myself often enough; I know how it works." She moved away from the wall. "I've been thinking; you look like you've got quite a bit of skill with those blades of yours."

"I have." Drizzt smirked a little himself, then sighed. "Not that yesterday..."

"There is not a warrior in Skyrim who can stand up alone to a saber cat," Ravenlight said bluntly. "I'm a skilled fighter myself—and there was a reason I was up on that cliff to fire at it when I did. I'd been working into position to shoot it from a spot where it couldn't get at me." She grimaced. "I have healing herbs, but I haven't been able to combine them into healing potions for a while now. I need to remedy that soon."

"You mix potions?" Drizzt glanced at her in surprise.

Ravenlight laughed softly. "Quite the conundrum, aren't I? But I prefer to say I have many facets, like a well-cut gem." She looked around, frowning as she contemplated her next move. Then she sighed. "I have too many preparations to just wander from one place to the next," she said at last. "I've gone off half-drawn before, and always paid for it. And you need to learn more about Skyrim. It will be far easier to do in safe territory."

"So what's your plan?" Drizzt followed her out to the road and watched as Ravenlight placed her fingers to her lips. She whistled, long and sweet: a coaxing warble that thrilled every nerve in his body.

In a few minutes, he heard a thunder of hooves along the road, and a huge, dappled horse cantered up along the road. Ravenlight smiled fondly as horse came up to them and halted, breathing out clouds of steam.

"There you are, Fearless, my beauty! My brave one; I was gone for a while this time, wasn't I? Ah, but you're all right." She sprang up and glanced over her shoulder at Drizzt. "My horse. I generally don't take him along when I'm traveling rough terrain; I don't want him hurt. But riding is faster than walking, and Whiterun is nearly a day's travel by foot." She beckoned him up behind her. "Don't worry; Fearless can carry two. He's a strong one, aren't you?" She stroked the powerful neck. "Two Elves won't be any problem for him. None at all."

"Where are we going?" Drizzt vaulted up behind her.

"Home for me: a city called Whiterun. It's a friendly enough place, and I can get supplies there." Ravenlight flicked Fearless's reins, and they set off at a canter. The big horse had a surprisingly smooth gait, given how heavily it strode over the ground. "And you can get a chance to find out a little more about the area. By the way, I never asked; how did you get here in the first place?"

"In all frankness, I don't know. But I think a failed spell had something to do with it." Drizzt grimaced. "I was passing by a camp of wizards when something exploded, and I was knocked flat by a force of what appeared to be iridescent light. When it passed back over me, I found myself here." He glanced ahead, and his eyes widened. "We're going south?"

"Yes. Why?" Ravenlight turned to look back at him, one eyebrow arched.

Drizzt pointed toward the dragon. Ravenlight followed the direction of his hand, frowned, then smiled. "He doesn't stray too far from his territory; we'll be all right. Besides which, that's not a particularly powerful one. Even if he attacks, we shouldn't have too much trouble." She scanned the skies overhead. "But tell me if you hear a roar that sounds closer. There are more powerful beasts in the air lately, and we do _not_ want to be caught by a blood or frost dragon out this way."

"Have you encountered them?" Drizzt also looked up.

"Yes. They can be killed, but I wouldn't bet on our chances if we're caught out in the wild. It helps to be somewhere there are guards, so you have help in taking the blasted thing down." She snickered. "Though I once saw a dragon attack a mammoth herd guarded by a giant. That was a fight over quickly."

For several moments more, they rode in silence, Fearless's hoofbeats the only sound. Then both Drizzt and Ravenlight jerked their heads up at a long, mournful howl ringing out from off the road. Instantly, Ravenlight slipped down off Fearless's back, dropping into a fighter's crouch.

"Wolves!" She drew a hand-and-a-half sword and held it in one hand, her left suddenly wreathed in hissing fire. Drizzt watched in surprise.

"Are they that much of a threat?"

Ravenlight circled into the woods, her eyes narrowed. "To me, no. To the average traveler coming along this way? Possibly. To some unlucky refugee chased out by bandits or a dragon attack?" She whirled, meeting the first of the charging gray beasts with a gout of blistering flame. "Most assuredly!"

Two more charged out of the trees while Ravenlight was busy with the first. Instantly, she stopped hurling fire and went after them with her blade, fire hissing out of the strange metal with each blow to envelope what she struck. Drizzt was nearly thrown when Fearless suddenly reared up and charged after a fourth wolf, trampling it under his plate-sized hooves. The entire fight was over in less than three minutes.

"I can see why you call him Fearless," Drizzt remarked, swinging down from the snorting horse to retrieve the carcass from under his hooves.

Ravenlight looked up from where she was skinning the singed wolves and smiled. "It's not just wolves," she said. "Any time I get into a fight, he helps. He actually got his name the first time I saw him; we were in a town to the southwest, called Falkreath. I'd just arrived there when a dragon attacked. The guards and I downed the dragon just outside the town gates, and Fearless and the other horses charged out of the stable to help attack it."

"He attacked a dragon?" Drizzt looked back at the dappled horse with new respect. "That's impressive."

"I don't know what all he might fight and what he'd run from." Ravenlight stripped off another skin with well-practiced efficiency. "Which is one of the reasons I tend to leave him near towns when I head off into the backwoods. I have no desire to lose him to a saber cat—or a troll." She looked down at something she'd found. "Well. It looks like we might have avenged someone; this wolf had a silver ring in its belly." She sighed, cleaned the ring off on the grass, and slipped it into her pack. "I don't mind so much when I find the dimwitted things have eaten gems—other than to wonder how on earth it happened—but jewelry clearly belonged to someone." She stood, wiping blood off her hands and her sword. "At least this pack won't be terrorizing anyone again."

"Nor will that cat." Drizzt rubbed the side of his face, still amazed that there was no pain from the encounter. "Though, judging from the scars on its hide, it had done a lot of terrorizing on its own."

"To be sure." Ravenlight looked around, then sprang back up on Fearless. "No wounds this time, you silly beast? Good." She beckoned to Drizzt again, and he sprang up behind her. "All right, let's go. We've got a long ways ahead of us yet, Fearless, but you'll sleep in a stable tonight, and have your fill of oats and hay. Hya!"

* * *

Ravenlight had lived in Skyrim for nearly a year now, and it had been eight months since she bought the small but comfortable Breezehome. But no matter how many times she came riding up the road to Whiterun, she never failed to feel the thrill of wonder at the sight of the place rising up, on the only hill for miles. Behind her, Drizzt leaned forward, a soft murmur escaping his lips.

"Is that Whiterun?"

She glanced back at him, grinning proudly. "Yes, that's Whiterun. It's not the grandest city in Skyrim, but it's special to me."

"It's beautiful." He leaned back a little, gazing at the Dragonhold glowing in the afternoon sun. "Why, exactly, is it special to you?"

"Just for starters, I live here." Ravenlight raised a hand in greeting to a wild-looking group striding along the road. "Hail, Companions!"

The woman at their head lifted her own hand, but didn't say anything. Ravenlight shook her head and chuckled ruefully. "I think they're sulking because I won't join them. I've been independent for a long time; even my joining the Bard's College hasn't changed that." She drew Fearless to a halt in front of the stable, and both dismounted. "Haemar! He needs a good rubdown and a sack of oats."

The stablemaster came out, smiling. "Ah, your proud Fearless one! Has he been fighting any more dragons?"

Ravenlight laughed. "The kind that have been coming after me lately? I'd make sure he got to a sheltered area, and quick. They're not ones I want him facing. They're not ones I want to face, not alone." She handed the stablemaster some coins, then turned toward the gate.

Drizzt followed her. "Bard's College? Are you a bard, then?"

Ravenlight snorted with laughter, waving a hand. "Me? Divines, no. I can't even play a drum—and you certainly don't want to hear me sing. Actually, I joined because the Bard's College is one of the best places to learn the old legends and the histories of Skyrim, something I need to do quite badly. Whether it was my intent or not, I've become part of this place; the least I could do is learn more about it." She grimaced. "And about what I might run into while I explore. Draugr. I'd never even _heard_ of the blasted things before I came here."

"Draugr?"

A passing guard shuddered. "Nightmares. They haunt the barrows and tombs of the old warriors. It's said that to look into the eyes of the draugr is to see death."

"It's not far wrong, either." Ravenlight rubbed her arms. "I still see some of those in my nightmares, too. Thank Akatosh, though, they can be taken down."

"You've encountered them?" Drizzt glanced at her, remembering her speed as she took down the wolves, and the fierce expression on her face as she did.

"Numerous times. Sometimes I've been after something specific in the tombs; other times, I was just bored." She chuckled. "And once I was ending a ghost story that held a small town in fear. Some treasure hunter had decided to turn con artist to keep everyone else away; he'd mixed up a potion that made him look spectral. I don't know what went into it, but I don't have any desire to replicate it, either; it drove him crazier than Sheogorath."

"You seem to have had an interesting time of it."

"Interesting is not the word." Ravenlight greeted the guard standing beside the gate.

He nodded back to her, then paused, looking intently at Drizzt. "Friend of yours, Lady Ravenlight?"

"A stranger to Skyrim," she answered calmly. "More so even than I ever was. I'll vouch for him."

The guard eyed the stranger suspiciously. "What does he know of the war?"

Drizzt shrugged a little. "That there is one."

Ravenlight glanced curiously at Drizzt. He seemed almost resigned to being questioned by irritated guards, making her wonder why.

The guard pressed on. "What think you of Ulfric Stormcloak?"

The look of utter bafflement was the clearest declaration of innocence he could have received. He nodded, satisfied. "Go on in; had to make sure you weren't a Stormcloak spy." He glanced over at Ravenlight. "Not that I believed the Thane would knowingly bring in danger, but one can't be too careful these days."

Drizzt stared at Ravenlight as they passed through the gates. "Thane?"

"That's the second reason Whiterun is special to me." She raised her hand, greeting a woman working at her forge. "I did a rather difficult errand for the court wizard, brought word about danger to one of the towns, and helped the guards take down the second confirmed dragon. Jarl Balgruuf isn't prejudiced, and he's inclined to reward initiative and courage. Though as far as I was concerned, this was the best reward." She opened the door to the house immediately past the forge. "Welcome to Breezehome."

"Welcome back, my Thane!" A pretty, dark-haired woman stood up from the table.

"Hello, Lydia." Ravenlight smiled at her. "Drizzt, this is Lydia, my housecarl. This is Drizzt Do'Urden, a stranger to Skyrim." She pulled off her pack and grimaced, stretching her shoulders. "Ow. That was getting heavy. Lydia, I'm going to be in the alchemy room for a while, then I need to go to the market district. Drizzt, feel free to make yourself at home here." She gestured around the room at the full bookshelves, the well-stocked cupboard, and the dishes set out on the table. "A number of those books should answer some questions about this place. Lydia and the people of the town can answer others. I'm going to be busy for a little while, and I tend to ignore everything around me while I'm working, so if you talk to me, and I don't say anything, I'm not being rude. I'm just...absorbed."

Lydia bowed slightly. "I'd be glad to teach him, my Thane." She straightened, appraising Drizzt curiously.

"Good." Ravenlight smiled apologetically at Drizzt, then strode across the room and through a door behind the stairs leading to the loft.

* * *

Lydia proved to be a willing font of information, gladly telling him about the land, the people, and the creatures that wandered it. She didn't know much about the dragons, saying only that they were coming back, none had come closer than a watchtower and a nearby town, and that Ravenlight would know more about them than she did. But she knew about the creatures—at least, she knew about the ones nearby. She explained about the giants and the mammoth herds they tended, who Ulfric Stormcloak and his counterpart Elisef were, named the more notorious bandit hideouts, and warned him about draugrs, trolls, and strange creatures called hagravens.

Once she'd finished chatting, Drizzt leaned back in the chair, trying to absorb all of what he'd been told. All he had really managed to take in was that Skyrim was just as dangerous as Faerun; possibly even a little more so. He had also learned a little more about Ravenlight, though he doubted Lydia knew she had provided the information; she had been very careful not to gossip about the Thane.

_Lydia, though she lives in a hub of Skyrim and no doubt picks up most—if not all—the gossip in the area, knows little to nothing about the dragons. But she directs me to ask Ravenlight—and for her part, _she_ is surprisingly knowledgeable._ It wasn't hard for him to reach a conclusion: somehow, Ravenlight and the dragons were connected. Still, he couldn't see the black-haired Elf in league with the creatures. She had mentioned killing at least two, and had as much as said that she could have killed the one on the mountain near the road. And her mention of the elite warriors who had destroyed the dragons held neither contempt nor alarm._ It may be a connection, but it's not an alliance._

From the alchemy room came a muffled curse, the crash of pottery breaking, then an indescribably bad smell. Ravenlight shouted. "Sheogorath's toenails! Lydia, shut the door, quick, this stuff's poisonous!"

Lydia practically flew to slam the door to the small room. Drizzt jumped up, startled. "You just shut her in there with it?!"

Coughing, Lydia moved away from the room. "She'll be fine," she said, in between bouts of hacking. "She's a good healer; and Bosmer are resistant to poisons." She took a bottle of mead from the cupboard and poured herself a tankard, gulping eagerly. "Ugh." She lowered the tankard and wiped her mouth. "I wonder what she broke; that stuff was foul."

"Experiment." Ravenlight's voice, only slightly muffled, came from the room. "Resulted in a particularly strong poison. Would have been fine if I hadn't knocked the bottle onto the floor. Don't open the door yet; I've got the window open. The place needs to air."

"Will you be all right?" Drizzt eyed the door.

"Wouldn't be if I drank the stuff, but the fumes aren't nearly as strong. Ah!" A scuffing sound, then a breath of relief, combined with a barely-audible mutter of, "Maybe I'd quit knocking bottles over if I moved away from the table..."

A few minutes later, the door opened and Ravenlight, wearing a circlet he had not seen before, came out of the alchemy room holding a drenched cloth in one hand. She pulled the quiver off her back, removed a large handful of arrows, and stuffed the cloth into the bottom of it, tucking the arrows back in on top. "There. That's taken care of." She glanced at Lydia and Drizzt, smirking. "There was no way I could have safely destroyed that cloth, not with that kind of mixture in it. Smoke could have killed half the town—or at least, made everyone sick. This way, the poison only goes where I want."

"You poison your weapons, then?" Drizzt eyed her, not sure what he thought of this.

"Yes." Ravenlight slung the quiver back over her shoulder. "Especially when I'm going up against particularly dangerous enemies. I'm not large or strong; it helps to have an advantage when you're going up against creatures that could throw me around like a rag doll."

"Like dragons?" The question came out more like a challenge than he had intended.

But she didn't take offense. "Dragons are just about at the top of the list. Thank the Divines most poisons work on the blasted things; fighting them off without it is terrifying." She paused. "Though I've heard more of giants that can throw a body with one blow. Never met one; but I'd rather the opportunity never came up."

"I see." Drizzt decided not to brag about the giants he'd killed over the years; from Lydia's description, they might have been a different sort.

Ravenlight shrugged back into her pack and grunted. "Oof. It's high time I went to the market and the forge." She glanced at Drizzt. "Want to follow? I won't make you listen in while I deal with the shopkeepers, and you can probably get a broader idea of the town and the area dealing with others." She exchanged grins with Lydia. "She doesn't get out as much as she'd like."

"You know I'd come with you, and gladly, whenever you asked." Lydia folded her arms and gave Ravenlight a mock-serious scowl.

Ravenlight sighed. "I know you would. I just don't like the thought of you getting involved in a toe-to-toe scramble involving a troll—or a frost dragon. Or worse, since Adrienne's been asking me if I could find her more Dwemer metal, and there's only one way to get it."

Lydia shivered. "There are things in the deeps, then?"

"Oh yes. And not just the Dwemer traps, though there are dozens of those and they're all deadly." Ravenlight grimaced. "Trust me, there are some things you don't need in your dreams."

"But you see them?" Drizzt stood, looking at her curiously.

"Half the things I've faced come after me in my mind. Draugr, trolls; bears sometimes; Falmer; and Alduin. I see him a lot, especially now."

"What's so special about now?" Drizzt almost missed Lydia's breathless whisper of, "World-eater."

Ravenlight nodded to Lydia, mouth set in a grim line. "Because now I know that his title isn't metaphor."

* * *

The black-haired Bosmer spent her next four hours ridding herself of nearly two hundred pounds of items. Whiterun's alchemist, Arcadia, gladly purchased the more exotic potions Ravenlight had put together, in exchange for all the store's healing potions and its entire stock of reagents.

In the general goods store next door, she shelled out a good number of jewelry and finer clothing, along with some unset stones and a number of large bones that had Belethor exclaiming with pleasure. Then, just to make up for nearly bankrupting him, she bought some healing potions, all the elven arrows he had, and several large soul gems.

Finally finished with the more mercantile area of her task, she turned her steps back toward the wall—and the forge. As she came up to it, she noticed a flicker of green and black, and looked toward the Drunken Huntsman across the street to see her stranger entering. A smile tugged at her lips. There are worse places for him to go, she thought. Elrindir is a friendly one, and they ought to hit it off. And he's not as likely to get in trouble there as he is at, say, the Bannered Mare. Besides which, Elrindir and his brother, who ran the fresh-meat stall in the market area, got out and about pretty regularly, and should be able to answer more questions.

"Well, hello there, Thane!"

Ravenlight jerked out of her musings to see Adrienne, Whiterun's skilled lady blacksmith, leaning against one of the overhang posts. She nodded back. "Hello, second-best blacksmith in Whiterun."

The two women laughed genially as Ravenlight strode into the forge yard. Adrienne eyed her pack. "Looks like you've got some weight in there that needs removing."

"I was lucky out in the wild areas." She removed the pack and began fishing out lumps of raw ore. "Even came across a few veins of moonstone—and that's hard to get."

"But no dwarf metal." Adrienne came over to the smelter beside her.

"I'm afraid not." Ravenlight selected the chunks of raw moonstone and handed them to Adrienne. As the blacksmith pushed the cast basin into the furnace, Ravenlight dug the shovel into the nearby pile of coal, feeding and stoking the fire to melt and blend the metal down. "Dwemer metals are hard to get—unless you're delving into the old ruins, of course, and there's just something about Falmer I really don't like."

"Falmer..." Adrienne kept her eye on the smelting basin, watching the moonstone slowly turn into a slurry of near-white. Fiery flickers appeared as the impurities burned away. "Those are the blind, slug-pale things you said live in the deepest parts of the ruins?"

"Those and chaurus." Ravenlight added another shovelful of coal. "I hate dealing with those things. My luck and bloodline can only go so far with that kind of poison. I had a run-in with one of them in the marshes—don't ask me how it got up there—and barely survived."

Adrienne swirled the metal around again, waiting for the impurities to burn off completely. "You really should take a companion with you, if it's getting that dangerous. Even with your gifts, you might run into something out there too much for you to handle. Lydia's willing to go along."

"Oh no." Ravenlight shook her head. "I've had this discussion with her a number of times. I've no doubt she's a skilled warrior and knows her way around a blade and a battle, and I'm willing to believe she's faced any number of bandits...but bandits are one thing. A dragon's another—and those are just the ordinary dragons, the ones I can fight off alone with no trouble. A blood dragon—or worse, a frost dragon—those are much more vicious. If I got separated from her, or distracted for a moment too long, I'd have her death on my conscience."

"It wouldn't be your fault," Adrienne pointed out mildly.

"Thronnir's death wasn't my fault either. Nor was Malborn's." She dug the shovel into the coal fiercely. "But I still feel guilt over it. And Lydia's a friend. Thronnir was a prisoner of the Thalmor; Malborn my co-conspirator. I didn't really know either of them."

"I do see your point." Satisfied, Adrienne poured the metal into the bar molds. "Hire a mercenary?"

"Mmm...I've thought about it. And heaven knows, I have the gold." Ravenlight produced a pile of iron ore from her back. "Plus, I know they can be a decent bunch. I like Arnier. But the same problem applies for Arnier as it does for Lydia." She tossed another shovelful on the coals. "Actually, it's stronger in his case, because he has a wife to support. I probably wouldn't be able to forgive myself if he got killed out chasing dragons with me." She grimaced. "I'd also like someone who won't have had any...tips from, say, the Dark Brotherhood."

Adrienne jerked up. "Dark Brotherhood?!"

"I've had two assassins come after me. I don't know who wants me dead that badly, but it's enough to make me cautious." Ravenlight emptied the last ore chunk into the smelting basin. "I'd need someone with considerable experience in exploring, who's faced nasty creatures and come out alive, and doesn't mind taking the roundabout way on foot across most of Skyrim, as opposed to the roads. And who doesn't have a superstitious terror about diving into old, haunted tombs."

"For treasure?" teased Adrienne, pushing the basin into the fire.

"Treasure's no bad reward for laying all those draugr back to rest." Ravenlight stoked up the flames again, looking down at her cooling bars of moonstone. "But there's more than treasure to be found down there; there's knowledge. Old legends to be poked back into life. Hapless ghosts to be avenged, so they can pass on." She snickered. "Con artists to be dusted so the town can continue on as normal."

"I guess. So are those all the qualifications needed for a companion to walk beside you?"

Ravenlight held back the flinch at the words. Adrienne did not know of that long-closed chapter in her life; nor did she need to. "Well...it would be nice to find someone who won't object or look at me like I'm crazy when I decide to be generous."

"If the story I heard about you paying a two-thousand gold tariff for a stallkeeper in Solitude is true, I understand that." Adrienne shook her head. "Really?"

"There was no way that woman could have paid the tariff—and if she didn't get the spices, she may well have lost her business. And I don't have enough faith in my voice to try and sweet-talk some overbearing noble out of a two-thousand-gold profit. But I had the money." Ravenlight shrugged, knocking the bars of moonstone out of the molds. "And it's not like I couldn't get the amount back again—and more—just by delving into some old ruin. There was no reason I couldn't help her out."

"I guess I don't understand handing over two thousand septims for someone you've barely met." Adrienne poured the molten iron into the just-freed molds. "But then, I don't have the opportunity to run around and delve into treasure caverns."

"It does make a difference," Ravenlight agreed. She waited until the iron was finished before adding two chunks of silver. "So does knocking apart bandit lairs. Most of their goods are free for the taking; and if you find something someone recognizes, you can give it back to them."

"Have you done that?" Adrienne stacked the moonstone bars near the forge.

"Only once, yet; though I'm heading out to retrieve something that belongs to the Bard's College tomorrow. From a bandit lair, which means I don't know how difficult it will be to find it. It might be fairly easy; it might be extremely difficult." She shrugged. "I never know what to expect with bandits."

"I know we're glad you're doing it; makes things a little easier for the rest of us when we know there are fewer bandits on the roads." Adrienne retrieved the bricks of iron as Ravenlight stirred the melted silver. "So, you joined the Bard's College. Any chance you might oust Mikael as entertainment at the Bannered Mare?"

"No chance at all. I sound like a female saber in heat when I try to sing—and I can't even play a drum. I joined because they have one of the best libraries in Skyrim, and I need to learn all I can about the legends." Ravenlight checked her pack one more time and stood upright. "All right, that's all the smelting I need to do. Mind if I borrow your forge for a minute, Adrienne?"

"Go ahead. I never mind it; your items go fast." Adrienne walked toward the front overhang of her shop. "But you might think about what I told you; it really won't be safe much longer for you to travel alone."

* * *

"So you came in with Ravenlight?" Elrindir leaned on the counter, his sloe-black eyes regarding Drizzt curiously. "She's an unusual one, that's for certain. But good."

"That was the impression I had of her." Drizzt hesitated. "By the way...the name of this place?"

"The Drunken Huntsman?" Elrindir chuckled ruefully. "Yes, I get asked that a lot. It came about shortly after my brother and I decided to open the shop. We went hunting one night after having...rather too much mead. We got separated, and in the moonlight, Anconiah mistook me for a deer. He shot me in my...well...my rump."

Drizzt opened his mouth, thought a few times, and closed it again. Elrindir chuckled again. "Yes. Exactly. Fortunately, I wasn't seriously hurt. But after such a memorable adventure, we knew we had the name for the shop." He straightened off the counter. "Though, needless to say, he does most of his hunting by himself now."

"I don't blame whoever made that decision." Drizzt looked around the room again and frowned a little. "Though...to be honest, I came in here under the impression that this was an inn."

"You're not the first to have that impression, either." Elrindir gestured. "The inn is at the end of this street; the Bannered Mare. Hulda will have food, drink, rooms; even a few jobs, if you're looking for them."

"I'll ask her about them." Drizzt straightened, then bowed slightly. "Thank you."

As he left the shop, Drizzt heard the clang of hammer on metal, and looked toward the forge. He stopped, his eyebrows lifting in surprise at the sight of Ravenlight at the forge, curving a breastplate over the anvil. The blacksmith didn't seem perturbed, as she worked a gleaming steel blade at the grindstone.

"So she's a smith also?" he muttered, shaking his head. "What is that woman?"

"Belethor says she drives a hard bargain, as well," said an unfamiliar voice. Drizzt looked down to see a young man looking up at him. He smiled a little. "I'm Sigurd; I work for Belethor, at the general goods store. I'm not exactly acquainted with the Thane, but I see her every now and then. She's...friendly." He flushed a little.

Drizzt glanced over at the slender Elf. Even in a place where Elves did not seem altogether welcome, Ravenlight was noticeable. With her habitually friendly demeanor added to her beauty, he was not surprised that Sigurd was interested. It surprised him that more of the men didn't appear interested—though, he considered, a number of the men may have been married, which would have changed things. Sigurd nodded to him and walked off, back in the direction of the market area. Drizzt, after one last puzzled glance at Ravenlight at the forge, followed in the same direction.

The market area, while not crowded, was respectably busy. Three stalls stood around the well in the center of the square, with two shops to the right. An attractive woman called attention to her produce, an older lady stood behind a locked glass box of jewelry, and a strapping Bosmer hawked fresh cuts of meat. Drizzt bit back a grin as he looked over at the Bosmer; the resemblance to Elrindir was unmistakable. The drunken huntsman himself, eh? I'd probably better not mention that to him, though.

A smooth, cool voice, not quite a sneer but close to it, spoke behind him. "A newcomer, then? Ah well; I suppose there's room for all sorts. Skyrim's big enough."

Drizzt turned to see a well-dressed man with reddish-brown skin and close-cropped hair. He moved on, ignoring the drow now that he had said his piece, and went on to harass some of the other people in the market.

"Don't pay him any heed," another voice said. This one belonged to a handsome young man with a well-groomed blond beard, leaning against one of the uprights of the nearby general store. He nodded to Drizzt. "Nazeem's like that with everyone. He's got a place in court, wealthy enough; but he has no true say. Makes up for it by being condescending to everyone he passes. I don't envy him. He's not liked."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised." Drizzt watched as the man stopped by the produce stall. He couldn't quite make out what he said to the woman who ran it, but from the way her lips tightened and eyes flashed, he guessed the man was within a hair's breadth of getting slapped. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if the only reason she didn't slap him was that he was a wealthy man, and she only a stallkeeper. He found himself contemplating the wisdom of evening things out for her.

"Talking about Nazeem?" The faint tap of metal-shod boots on cobble was the only thing that betrayed Ravenlight's presence as she came up behind him. "He's a jackass, that's all. Though he's worse to women." Her lips tightened slightly. "He will, however, tone it down if the woman in question habitually carries a flaming sword. But, annoying as he is, he's not worth it. The best thing to do is just forget about him the minute he passes by." She nodded to the young man leaning against the post, apparently unaware of how his eyes lit up at being noticed. "Drizzt, were you on your way to the Bannered Mare?"

"I was. Will that be a problem?"

Ravenlight chuckled wryly. "There are fewer fights in there than in, say, the Companions' mead hall. But there are some ne'er-do-wells, and the odd permanent drunk—and Mikael, the bard, who is a womanizer and a first-rate bastard. I was actually more concerned about the amount of your coin—or lack of it, considering where I found you. But you will need a room there. Breezehome only has two bedrooms—and both are owned." She chuckled at the look on his face. "Come on; I'll pay Hulda for your room. And then I have a...proposition for you—which may take care of your coin problems."

* * *

The common room of the Bannered Mare was well-occupied. A well-armored woman sat nursing a tankard; a scruffy man reeking of alcohol sat against the opposite wall. A handsome bard stood in front of the firepit, playing a wooden flute. A woman with the same reddish-brown skin as Nazeem swept, her head turned to reveal an odd scar pattern across one side of her face. Ravenlight led him through the crowd to the bar, where a gracefully aging woman leaned on the counter. She smiled as she saw them.

"Hello, Thane! Come to grace us with your presence?"

Ravenlight smiled back. "Hello, Hulda. Actually, I'm buying a room for my friend here. And if you could give us two of whatever you've got on the stove in the back, I'd appreciate it." She set a handful of golden coins on the counter.

Hulda swept them into her palm. "Certainly. You'll be eating here, then?"

"Yes. We'll be taking one of the back tables. I have some private business with him."

"Very well. I'll have Saadia bring you your food—and any drinks, if you wish." She smiled at Drizzt, looking him over curiously. "Once you're ready to head to your room, just ask, and she'll show you to it."

Drizzt bowed slightly. "Thank you, Mistress Hulda."

She beamed. "Well, aren't you a polite one! I'm glad to have you in here."

Ravenlight guided Drizzt over to a corner table, the furthest away from the door and the firepit. "I don't need anyone listening in," she explained as she slid into one of the carved chairs, "especially not that confounded bard. If there's one thing they're not good at, it's keeping a secret. And I don't want my business spread all over Skyrim before I'm halfway to Riften." She looked him in the eye. "Or should I say, before we're halfway to Riften."

Drizzt's eyebrows arched. "We?"

"Yes." Ravenlight stopped talking abruptly, looking up and smiling as Saadia came up to them, carrying two steaming plates of roasted venison and vegetables. "Thank you, Saadia. And two cups of mead, if you would, as well?" She handed over a few coins, and the girl walked off. Ravenlight looked back at Drizzt. "I was speaking with my friend Adrienne earlier, and she pointed out that, strong as I am, strong as I'm becoming, Skyrim is a dangerous place. It could only help if I had a companion on the road. Lydia would come, and gladly; but she's a bit too loyal, and would die to protect me, something I do not need on my conscience. And the local mercenaries...well, they'd come for the shine of my gold, and a share of the treasure holds we delved into, but I somehow doubt they'd be understanding of my...more generous habits."

"Are you asking to hire me?" Drizzt frowned, trying to understand.

"If that's what you'd prefer, yes. If you'd rather not think of yourself as a mercenary—which I understand completely—then I'll put it this way." Ravenlight leaned forward. "I need a companion for the road, someone skilled with a blade, preferably not superstitious, and willing to face down monsters. You were out of your element when you first arrived, but I've seen the way you move, and the way you handle your blades—and I'm impressed." She leaned back, quieting again as Saadia returned with two tankards.

Drizzt waited until the serving girl was out of earshot, as it seemed Ravenlight had said her piece. "So you're asking if I would like to come with you on the road?"

"Or into the cities, if we need." She smiled a little. "They're not all that bad; and I wouldn't make you come into Windhelm with me." She grimaced then. "Not that I have much reason for wanting to go into Windhelm."

"What's Windhelm?"

"Ulfric's capitol. I'm technically neither on one side or the other in this war, but I've learned a few things about Ulfric Stormcloak—and they're not good." She shook her head. "I want nothing to do with him or his Stormcloaks. Though I may eventually have to choose a side."

"Why's that?" Drizzt tried the roasted vegetables, ruefully wondering why regular meals never seemed to fit into his life.

"Because I'm firmly on Whiterun's side, whatever happens. This is my home, and I'm fond of it. And Jarl Balgruuf isn't about to meekly bend his head to Ulfric's bullying." Ravenlight shook her head a little. "At any rate, the roads may soon become even more unhealthy for me than they normally are. I need someone at my side; someone I'm willing to trust."

"And you're willing to trust someone you met only a day ago?" Drizzt smiled, wondering if he was charmed by her trust or baffled by her naivety.

"Someone who is a complete stranger to Skyrim, not to mention Tamriel?" Ravenlight matched his smile. "You'd be under no obligation to stay with me any longer than you wanted; but I've been known to travel nearly the length and breadth of the land just for my own amusement. I'd certainly have no objections to guiding you to various places you may decide you wanted to see; most of the time, I want to see them myself." She cocked her head, amber eyes glinting in the firelight. "Or are you suggesting you're not trustworthy?"

"My friends considered me trustworthy. I consider myself trustworthy." Drizzt sighed. "But I do have a tendency to...attract trouble."

"That could be said of most of the people here," Ravenlight said dryly, "including myself. And what trouble I don't attract, I sometimes get into on purpose. If you're strong enough, skilled enough, or just sly enough to take on that trouble, I don't mind it in the slightest." She drank from her tankard.

Drizzt looked down at his plate. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "After what happened before I... was sent here...it's not easy to just transition from one life to another."

"I don't expect an answer now." Ravenlight paused. "Nor will I expect any kind of recompense for helping you. If you decide you don't want to travel with me, there are jobs in the area you should be able to take on—and the Companions aren't fussy about who joins them, as long as you enjoy a good fight. They take care of their own, as well." She finished her ale and stood. "Take the night to think it over. I'm heading for Riften at dawn; I'll wait a little while in front of the stable. If you decide to join me, meet me there." She smiled. "It's up to you."

As Ravenlight began to leave the inn, Mikael announced his next song—a new one, in honor of a newly-emerged hero. It was an odd song, but beautiful and...somehow inspiring. Drizzt turned to watch the man, and his eyebrows arched.

Ravenlight stood in front of the door, rigid, her head up, her eyes gleaming, her face still. As Mikael sang, warning the wicked of the land that their end was soon, the light played across her in a strange way. The wall behind her became darker. But she grew brighter, her armor throwing a nimbus about her form.

Drizzt did not seem to be the only one who noticed, either. Heads turned, and the inn grew very quiet as the bard sang the last line.

"_You'll know, you'll know the Dragonborn comes_."

* * *

**Author's Note:** The note is mostly about the timeline. At this point in the story, Ravenlight knows who she is and what she is after, though she has not yet gone to Sky Haven Temple. For Drizzt, the accident happens right after the events of _Gauntylgrim, _but just before _Neverwinter _starts, so he has a lot of his more impressive items-which will come into play later on in the story.

All reviews will be graciously accepted. Flames will be critiqued against the dragonfire scale, judged for impressiveness, and otherwise disregarded.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Riften and Roads**

Ravenlight never knew what morning would bring, no matter what part of Skyrim she was in. Sometimes, it was cold, sullen and rainy. Sometimes it was just overcast and threatening to rain. And sometimes—as now—it was bright and clear, the sun casting warmth over the open land.

She stood outside the stable, brushing Fearless. He didn't really need it; Haemar had curried him until he shone the night before. Still, if she planned to wait for thirty or so minutes to see if Drizzt took her offer, it was best to have something to do. Thane or not, the guards of Whiterun tended to watch Bosmer carefully, unless she was leaning, glassy-eyed, against the support of a closed building, waiting for the owner to open shop.

She looked around and sighed as once again, she failed to see the black and green she still hoped for. "Well," she said aloud, tightening the girth straps on Fearless's saddle, "it was both a long shot and a gamble; and while I'm safe enough with a long shot, I don't always make it with the gamble. Let's go then, my fearless one; the stable at Riften might not be so nice, but there will be hay and straw at the end of the journey, and perhaps someone skilled with a curry brush."

Fearless tossed his head and snorted, pawing the ground with one big hoof. He was well-rested and eager to be off. Ravenlight sprang up onto his huge back, and looked around one last time. "I guess he's really not coming," she muttered, wondering why she felt so dejected about it. "Ah well. Off we go, Fearless; we've a long road ahead of us."

* * *

Drizzt hurried down the road toward the stables. Though not as large as some of the places he'd been to in his life, Whiterun was large enough—and unfamiliar enough—for a stranger to get lost.

There had been some mental debate the night before, whether or not he had wanted to travel with Ravenlight; but the part of him that had been reluctant was small. In truth, he was eager. This was his life: adventure and traveling, whether he had a set goal at the end of the road, or just wanted to see what lay over the horizon. The only real objection he'd had was wondering what sort of person Ravenlight actually was—and that had been safely laid to rest by speaking to the people in the Bannered Mare, as the evening grew late and those who normally saw to their shops came to the inn for drink and rest.

His last fear had been laid to rest this morning, when they sent him to see the Gildergreen, a huge, magnificent tree in the center of town. According to Danica, the priestess of a nearby temple, the tree had been all but dead until recently, when Ravenlight had undertaken the task of reviving it—a task more difficult and more dangerous that it sounded. Standing under the massive tree, gazing up as the first golden light of dawn caressed the leaves and pink flowers that covered the thick boughs, he wondered how long it had been since he had seen anything that beautiful. _Aside from..._

He quickly shied away from that still-open wound. But his mind was made up. Ravenlight had offered him something he wanted, and he would take it. He turned and moved down the stairs.

In his distracted state, though, he'd taken the wrong stairs, not having realized that there were _two_ nearly identical stairways leading down: one leading to the market area, one leading into a district of fine houses. Baffled and unsure of himself, he had spent nearly twenty minutes trying to find the way out, before the Redguard mercenary Amren had guided him to the gate.

As Drizzt came up to the stables, he slowed, his eyes widening in dismay. The big dappled horse was gone, and no one stood on the road. _She's gone? _Disappointment clouded his eyes. _Well...she did say she would only wait a short while..._

"Looking for the Thane?"

Drizzt turned sharply to see the stablemaster, leaning on the split-rail fence and looking at him curiously. He nodded. "Yes, I am. Is she...?"

"You just missed her. Just. By five minutes." The man pointed down the road. Drizzt moved in the direction he indicated and saw what he was looking for: the dappled horse and its black-haired rider in the distance, just crossing a bridge in front of an obscenely high mountain. "She looked pretty sorry as she rode off. If you hurried, you could catch up with her—and I'm guessing she'd be glad of your company."

Relief flooded him as quickly as the disappointment had. "Thank you. I will hurry." He ran down the road a little ways, to be away from the nosy stablemaster before he pulled his enchanted whistle out. _I guess now is as good a time as any to see what of the magic I carry still works. _Taking a deep breath, and sincerely hoping things worked the same way here in Tamriel as they did in Faerun, he blew on the whistle.

* * *

Ravenlight had just crossed the bridge that put her on the proper road to Riften—and, incidentally, right under the monstrous Throat of the World—when she heard a high-pitched, clear whistle behind her. She was familiar with a number of calls and sounds that might be heard in the wild places of Skyrim, but that kind of whistle wasn't one of them. Curious, she looked back, just as the echoes faded—and were replaced with light, swift hoofbeats.

Looking eastward in the early morning was a study in annoyance, especially to eyes as sharp as hers. But she was fairly certain she was actually seeing a pure white creature, much too graceful to be a horse of Skyrim, coming toward her. And if she was right, the large blotch on its back was someone dark-skinned or dark-clad—or both—riding it. Then, as the beast drew closer, her mouth dropped open.

Her eyes weren't fooled by the sun. It was Drizzt, grinning at the look on her face, and mounted on the most incredible thing she'd laid eyes on since coming to Skyrim: a unicorn. Fearless turned to look and snorted with surprise, dancing a little in place as the unicorn drew up to them.

"I thought you said you would wait!" Drizzt called as he rode into earshot.

"I _did _wait," Ravenlight retorted, unable to hide her grin as she realized that she would have company after all. "For nearly an hour. Where were you?"

"Lost, mostly. I'm not familiar with the layout of your towns." Drizzt slowed his mount as they drew up beside her. "Before that, I was admiring the Gildergreen."

"Ah." Ravenlight nodded, eyes momentarily dreamy. "It's gorgeous, isn't it? Even before Danica revived it, it had a real majesty about it. Now, of course, I understand why pilgrims of Kynareth would travel to Whiterun to see it."

"She told me you were the reason it was revived." Drizzt glanced at her curiously.

Ravenlight shrugged one shoulder. "I was just the catalyst. Danica knew how to do it; but she couldn't have taken on the hagravens at Orphan Rock, or the spriggans in the Eldergleam sanctuary." She sighed, eyes haunted. "I wish I'd _thought _that the spriggans would object to that blasted knife before I got the sap I needed."

"What happened?" Drizzt watched her carefully.

"A couple of pilgrims were killed," she answered. "Danica asked me to bring her back a bowl of sap from the Eldergleam, reasoning that the sap of the parent tree might bring the Gildergreen back to life. But I didn't realize when I went up to get the sap that the sanctuary had guardians. When I bled the tree, I was attacked—along with two innocents who'd just been in the cave at the wrong time. I wish I had asked them to go outside until I was finished." She sighed, looking into the distance. "For me, it wasn't really a problem. I've fought spriggans off before. But the pilgrims...they took them by surprise. I don't think they stood a chance."

"You didn't see it?"

She shook her head. "The Eldergleam is at the top and the back of the huge cavern that shelters it. I barely had time to get the sap safely in my pack before two spriggans attacked me; by the time I dealt with them, the ones who'd emerged at the bottom of the cavern had killed the pilgrims and were coming up after me."

"What happened? I assume you...at least avenged the pilgrims?" Drizzt looked away, remembering a few times in his own past where his presence had attracted danger to unsuspecting innocents.

"I certainly did." Gold lights flashed in the Bosmer woman's eyes. "And then buried both of them on a little plateau, under a pair of trees. I wanted to bury them under the Eldergleam itself, but I couldn't make it all the way up that path carrying one body, let alone two."

"Sometimes that's all you can do."

Ravenlight glanced over at him, a wry twist to her mouth. "Experience?"

He nodded. She didn't press him for details. For several moments, the two rode together in silence. Then Drizzt glanced up to see a pair of towers in the near distance; one on the far side of the river, one on the near, and both connected with an arching bridge. Figures moved back and forth on the bridge, tiny but visible. He frowned, remembering the talk of Imperials and Stormcloaks in the inn, and pointed at the towers.

"Up ahead. Which faction holds that?"

"What, Valthiem Towers?" Ravenlight looked toward it and shook her head. "Neither side. It's actually notorious for being a bandit hideout. I went through and cleared it out, the first time I used this road." She noticed the figures then, and her lips thinned. "At least, I cleared it out for a _while_. Looks like places like that don't _stay _cleared."

"It's a good spot for an outpost," Drizzt mused. "I can understand why it would be reclaimed; they all but control the road from here."

Ravenlight glanced sideways at him, a dangerous grin hovering over her face. "Shall we do the next few bands of travelers a favor?"

"Clear it out again?" Drizzt matched her grin. "That eager to see me fight?"

"My blood's ready to sing," she responded, swinging down off of Fearless. "Stay here," she ordered, stroking the horse's neck. "They have bows, and I don't want to have to pull arrows out of your rump again." Fearless snorted. Ravenlight glanced up at Drizzt. "They _will _shoot at your mount," she warned, loosening her sword. "Leave him here if you don't want him hurt."

He nodded, slipping off the unicorn and stroking the side of its neck. "Return, Andohar," he ordered. "I will call when you are needed again."

Ravenlight arched an interested eyebrow as the unicorn turned and galloped off, vanishing in a silvery haze. "A summoned mount. Interesting; I haven't seen that sort of magic before."

"It's not unknown in my world." Drizzt felt oddly self-conscious, and loosened both his scimitars, trying to hide it. "So; a plan of action? Will they attack a pair of well-armed travelers?"

"Your cloak may hide the fact that you're well-armed." Ravenlight looked him over. "But there's no reason they _wouldn't _challenge us; there are at least fifteen of them in those towers. They'll be well-armed themselves, and they might believe they have the element of surprise. And, like I said, a number of them have bows. They'll try to just bluff us out of our gold; but I don't take bluffing well." She grinned, the expression dangerous and feral. "Don't attack until they do."

He answered her grin, suddenly just as eager for the fight as she was.

The single lookout stood as they approached, readying a heavy warhammer. "Hold up," she ordered. "This here's a toll road, see? You have to pay the toll if you want to use our road. Let's say about two hundred septims."

Ravenlight eyed her coolly, one hand dropping to her sword hilt. "Toll road, eh? How about this: you let us pass, and we won't kill you."

Her attitude of nonchalance sent chills down Drizzt's spine, but was lost on the bandit. She sneered. "Oh, big talk—for someone who's about to have their guts spilled!"

She lunged, hefting the warhammer above her head. Ravenlight simply whipped out her sword—but she moved back, allowing Drizzt to dart forward, his twin blades flashing in a deadly blur. The bandit staggered back, blood gushing from her throat and abdomen, then collapsed, her warhammer still lifted.

Ravenlight nodded approvingly. "You're good."

"I never claimed I wasn't." Drizzt jerked to the side as an arrow whistled past. "Let's deal with the rest of them, shall we?"

Ravenlight pulled her bow off her back. "I'll get those archers."

Drizzt eyed the arrow she pulled out, remembering the poison-soaked cloth in the bottom of the quiver. "Watch your aim with that."

She grinned. "I'll be careful. And I'll aim for the further-away ones. Yell once you're up on the bridge." She stepped away from the shelter of the tower, ducked away from another shot, and sent her own arrow whistling across the river.

Drizzt jerked open the door and darted inside. He heard another arrow whistle outside, and a crash as someone fell off the top of the tower. Above him, footsteps sounded as a bandit started down the stairs, hefting a mace. Drizzt wheeled, avoiding the blow and lashing out with Twinkle. The bandit crumpled, and he dashed past.

Steps came up behind him. He whirled to see Ravenlight, putting her bow away, coming up behind him. "Dealt with the archers," she reported. "Let's get the rest of them."

"You're a good shot."

"The poison helps."

"Do you have any idea how eerie it is to hear you admit that?"

She grinned. "Yes." She darted forward a few steps, thrusting past him with her fire-wreathed blade, skewering a bandit lunging down at them. "It still helps. Let's go!"

Side by side, the two dashed up the wooden steps wrapped around the tower. First Drizzt was in front, Twinkle and Icingdeath lashing almost too fast to see; then it was Ravenlight, her flaming sword whipping out in swift arcs. The bandits were a strong lot; still, none of them lasted more than half a minute against the pair. Their chief lasted longest, and was the only one to land a blow: a strike to the side that sent Ravenlight staggering back, her hand flying to her ribs. Drizzt shouted with anger and redoubled his own attack, cutting down the man in three moves.

When he turned back, Ravenlight was straightening, golden swirls of light fading from around her form. She probed the spot and nodded.

"That hurt. But I've taken worse." She grinned at him. "Really helps to have someone else to take him on, so I can drop back and heal. Did any of them catch you?"

"No. They weren't fast enough." Drizzt wiped the blood off his scimitars and resheathed them. "We finished here?"

"Not yet." Her grin widened. "This is a bandit's stronghold, which means everything in here is fair game. There ought to be a few chests with good things in them."

"I saw one down below, beside the stairs."

"Ah—" Ravenlight frowned. "Let me get that one. If I remember right, it was booby-trapped last time. I...well, I notice the triggers. If you set them off from far enough away, it's usually safe to open afterward." She pointed to the second tower. "There was one at the top of that tower, on the lookout's point. Don't ask me why they put it up there. Maybe that was the chief's spot, and he liked gloating over his spoils. That one wasn't trapped."

Drizzt nodded and strode off over the bridge. Ravenlight walked back inside, pausing every now and then to remove an obvious coin purse from a body. After all, they wouldn't be using the money anymore.

She had been right about the chest: the trigger running up from the floor had been reattached, and the heavy morningstar replaced up on the wall. A quick shot cut the string, dropping the spiked ball down. Had she been standing in front of the chest, it would have caught her in the head, concussing her badly if not killing her outright. But, from a distance of five feet away, it did no damage. Once the morningstar quit swinging, she strode forward and opened the chest.

_Mostly bait items,_ she mused, looking them over, _but these are nice weapons—and the jewelry will sell. _They would also work if she decided to lay an enchantment on them. She put the items into her pack and went to find Drizzt.

He met her halfway across the bridge, his own pack looking heavier than before. She noticed that he was also cleaning some new bloodstains off one of his scimitars. "Did we miss one?"

"He probably decided to avoid the work of fighting us," he answered. "Found him in the second tower. If he'd run off, I'd have let him go; instead, he came after me with an axe."

"They usually don't run." She nodded at his pack. "Find anything good?"

"It all looked valuable." He shrugged a little. "I'm...new to this looting business."

Ravenlight laughed. "Well, don't loot any place respectable," she advised. "Even if you're there as an enemy. We're likely to make enough enemies as it is; I don't need to give anyone _more _reasons to hate me."

"You have someone who truly hates you?" Drizzt raised an eyebrow as they walked out of the newly-cleared towers.

Ravenlight grunted in irritation. "Someone who hates me badly enough to want me dead. I've dealt with two of the Dark Brotherhood's assassins; there's only one way to contact them. It's called the Black Sacrament and it's...ugh."

"You know what it is?" Drizzt looked at her cautiously.

Her face crinkled with disgust. "I came across the ritual in a book. It involves making an effigy of the one you want dead—out of actual body parts."

Drizzt stared in horror. "Actual..."

"I don't know if you're allowed to, say, raid a graveyard, or if you actually have to kill a number of people to get the...bits." She shuddered. "Either way, it's highly disturbing. The fact that someone would do this against me—_twice—_is...well...it's unnerving."

"You don't know who it is?"

"I have absolutely no idea. But whoever it is knows _me_. My name was on the notes I found on the bodies." She scowled. "It wasn't so bad when I discovered the note on that Thalmor spy; after all, I'd just been in their embassy, rooting through their dossiers. And, wisely or not, I told the ambassador my name. She didn't know whether it was my real name or not; she thought it might have been an alias. I knew who sent the spy and what I'd done to make them interested. The other one...I don't know." She whistled, calling Fearless up from where he had been waiting. "I don't know if I ever _will _know. Part of me hopes I'll find out. The other part's not so sure."

Drizzt blew on his magical whistle, summoning Andohar again. "I've had a number of people want me dead as well," he mused, vaulting up onto the unicorn's back. "One was an assassin with a personal grudge; though he didn't really want me _dead _so much as he wanted to know that he could defeat me."

"Not sure which would be worse," Ravenlight muttered. "But I do know this: that wouldn't work here. If someone engages me in a fight, I automatically assume it's to the death, especially if I'm just attacked out of the blue."

"Has that happened before?" The two started back down the road again, Andohar easily matching Fearless's heavy canter.

"Several times. I generally don't know why." She grimaced. "But when someone charges at me, screaming and waving a weapon, I don't ask questions. I just fight."

"You can't ask during the fight?" Drizzt glanced at her, remembering someone who would have much rather spoken than fought—at least, in most situations. The memory still hurt; but not quite as badly as before.

Ravenlight shook her head. "They don't listen. It's the way of the world here. If someone attacks you, they're not in a mood to talk. If you beat them down, they may yield—but healing skills are common, and I've had more than one person back off after I've thrashed them, only to heal a little and charge at me again. I don't really know why they think they can push their luck."

"Some do confuse mercy with weakness." Drizzt grimaced, remembering a number of those from his own past.

"What I don't get is why they would think I'm weak after I just cut down every one of their comrades. You'd think they'd figure it out."

Drizzt laughed. "I have a reputation as one of the best swordsmen in my entire country—if not most of the _world. _Most people who hear about it just take it as a challenge."

"I take it you leave most of them alive, but with their dignity in tatters?" Ravenlight smiled at him. "I'd like to be able to do that. Either the people in your world are more sensible...or it's a kinder world than mine."

"I'm not sure I'd call it _kinder_. Just different." Drizzt looked ahead. "Believe me, I've left more than my share of enemies dead behind me."

* * *

The road was not exactly uneventful; but neither was it anything the two of them had problems with. Twice they dealt with a pack of opportunistic wolves; once a thief appeared, and tried a mugging. Fortunately for him, he heard the ice in Drizzt's voice when the Drow warned him off, and quickly fled off the road and into the thickening woods.

A more worrying encounter was with a pair of farmers, a man and his wife, fleeing along the road. Their clothing smelled of smoke; their hair and faces were singed and streaked with ash. The woman wept softly as she ran. Ravenlight swung down off her horse and went up to them.

"What happened?" she called. "Are you all right?"

"A dragon," the man said, drawing to a halt and looking nervously up at the sky. "Attacked our home; burned it to ash. We barely made it out alive."

"Everything we owned is gone," the woman choked out. "Our livelihood; our house... everything."

Ravenlight's eyes burned. "Did you happen to see which way the beast went?"

Drizzt hoped his alarm did not show. He was a skilled warrior, but taking on a dragon wasn't high on his list of enjoyable battles.

The man shook his head. "Are you mad? No, we didn't watch. We just ran." He ran a hand through his soot-streaked reddish hair. "I don't know what we're going to do."

Ravenlight nodded. "I understand. Sometimes running is all you can do." She reached into her pack. "Here. It's not much; certainly won't replace your farm, much as I wish I could do that. But this will help you." She handed over a small coin pouch, and three pieces of jewelry. "Will you need food, or drink?"

"I...if you could spare it." The woman looked down, her lips trembling. "We haven't eaten since..."

"I certainly can." Ravenlight dug into her bottomless pack again, coming out with several loaves of bread and some carefully-wrapped roasted meats. "Here; this will last you a few days." She looked back. "The road should be clear if you're heading to Whiterun. The only problem is that thief; he ran off when my friend told him to clear out. But..." She looked over the couple and smiled a little. "Keep the coin well-hidden, and he should let you pass."

"Thank you." The woman teared up again. "Who are you?"

"I'm Ravenlight, Thane of Whiterun." She smiled. "They know me there, and there should be some folk willing to give you aid."

"Divines smile on you," the man said fervently. "This is more than we expected."

Ravenlight glanced up at the sky. "There's an inn at Darkwater Crossing, some five miles back," she said. "It shouldn't be too expensive; they cater mostly to the miners there. You should be able to reach there before dark."

"Thank you." The man bowed a little, then he and his wife started off again.

Drizzt twisted around in his saddle to watch them go. "Ravenlight," he said slowly, "has this happened often?"

"Dragon attacks? Oh yes. There aren't always survivors." Her face twisted with anger. "I _will _stop them. It's not going to be easy, but I will stop them." She looked up at the sky, and Drizzt had to strain to catch her words. "You will not be safe forever, Alduin Destroyer of Worlds."

* * *

The woods had grown thick and close before the sun began to set. Ravenlight glanced up at the sky, then around them at the woods. "Hmm; I don't know if we should keep going after dark. The roads get dangerous."

"Is there a place to camp near here?" Drizzt also looked around. "I'm not sure of the...wisdom of just sleeping in the open."

"We might not have a choice," she pointed out. "Caves are out of the question; they're always occupied, and you always have to clear out their current tenants before you can do anything. And I can't see any buildings close by—and even those aren't always safe." She dismounted, guiding Fearless off the road. "With two people, though, one can keep watch, the other can sleep; and we're both fierce fighters. I think we'll be all right."

"I see your point." Drizzt swung down and dismissed Andohar. "Where do you think is wisest to sleep?"

"There's a sheltered area over there, between those five trees." Ravenlight concentrated for a moment, then opened her hand. A floating, pale-blue light appeared, illuminating the area. It moved with her as she entered the trees, looking around carefully. "No wolf tracks; no skeever sign; I haven't heard any bears..."

"No saber cats?" Drizzt's question wasn't just teasing.

"Sabers prefer more open areas. I've yet to encounter one in a place this thickly wooded." She turned in a circle, peering into the darkness. "I have run into a few trollsin areas like this...but there's generally some warning, and trolls have a pretty distinct odor. Smell it once, you never forget it." She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. "I think we're good for here. Nothing smells off."

Fearless lowered his head, snuffling at the greenery on the forest floor. Nothing in the area bothered him. Ravenlight removed his tack, pulling a bedroll made of thick fur off the back of his saddle. "Only one bedroll; we may have to stop at Riften and remedy that."

"Well, if one of us is always awake and keeping watch, it might not be so serious," Drizzt pointed out. The little floating magelight went out with a soft hiss. He glanced up at where it had been. "I'll take first watch. When do you want me to wake you?"

Ravenlight spread out the bedroll, checking to make sure it wasn't lying on any obvious roots. "Give me three hours. I'll do the same for you."

Drizzt nodded as she stretched out. It was a fair schedule.

The place they had chosen was a good campsite; far enough off the road to avoid any sneaking bandits or thieves, but free enough of game to be ignored by predatory creatures. The five evergreens gave shelter from the wind, and promised to offer it from the rain. Drizzt prowled around the outside of the evergreens, peering closely through the darkness for anything strange. The three hours were nearly up before he spotted it.

He caught a brief glimpse at first, and would have ignored it but for the furtive way it moved. Careful not to let the stranger know he'd been seen, Drizzt watched more carefully. Man-sized, man-shaped; but it moved with fluid ease, and was clad entirely in black. Furthermore...it was definitely sneaking up on the camp.

Drizzt melted into the shelter of the evergreens, keeping a careful eye on the movement of the stalker. His hand slid into his belt pouch, coming out with an onyx figurine. "Guenhwyvar," he whispered. "To me."

Mist streamed off the figurine, coalescing into the form of a black panther, smaller and slimmer than the saber cats—but big enough to do plenty of damage. The creature took in the situation at a glance and darted up the nearest tree, creeping out on a large limb—ready to strike. Drizzt drew back into the shadows, pulling out his scimitars so slowly they made no sound. The stalker came closer, a black dagger in his hand. Moonlight filtered down through the trees, illuminating Ravenlight asleep on the bedroll, and the stalker smiled coldly.

"Finally," he whispered, in a voice as soft as the wind. He stepped forward, raising the dagger.

Drizzt seemed to materialize between the assassin and his sleeping target, both swords flicking up and out. The man—it did seem to be a man—reeled back, barely avoiding the razor-edged blades. He dropped to a crouch, snarling.

"Who in Oblivion are you?"

"Drizzt Do'Urden." Drizzt also crouched, ready. "Ravenlight's companion on the road."

"Then you'll die with her!" He whipped out a short sword in addition to the dagger and lunged, blades whirling.

Drizzt met him easily, matching his blows stroke for stroke. The assassin didn't seem to know what to make of an opponent able to parry every move of his weapons, and backed away slightly, frowning. Then he darted in again, trying to dash past the Drow to get to his target.

The assassin was good. But Drizzt was better—and he'd seen that technique before. He twisted swiftly, darting in to intercept the charge. His blades snagged both dagger and short sword, tangling the sword and knocking the dagger out of the assassin's hand. The assassin juked to the side, reaching for another knife hidden in the folds of his clothing—

Which was when Guenhwyvar dropped from her branch, claws extended. In a few seconds, the assassin lay still.

A soft puff of air signaled the magelight spell as Ravenlight stood up, sliding her unneeded sword back into its sheath. "Quick work. Both of you." She eyed Guenhwyvar curiously, her eyes glinting in the pale-blue light. "Another summoned creature? I'd have noticed that hanging around us before."

"Yes. This is Guenhwyvar." Drizzt rested a hand on the panther's head. "My most loyal, and most constant, companion. She's been with me for...many, many years."

"She's gorgeous." Ravenlight stroked the sleek body, then knelt beside the shredded assassin, digging in his clothes. "Now where would that...ah." She straightened, holding a folded piece of paper. Unfolding it revealed a strangely unpleasant letterhead. She scowled at it. "Dark Brotherhood again. Of course."

"This would be the third assassin, wouldn't it?" Drizzt peered down at the strange figure as Ravenlight pulled the cloth away from his face. "What race is he, by the way?"

"Altimer. High Elf." Ravenlight found something else in his clothing and frowned at it. "Possibly one of the Thalmor, as well. The Dark Brotherhood aren't all that picky about who they recruit."

"Why do you say that?"

"This." Ravenlight held up a ring with an unusual signet. "I remember seeing a similar ring on one of the guards I fought at the Thalmor Embassy. This fellow looks vaguely like him; he might have been a relative."

"Trying to avenge him, I suppose." Drizzt sighed. "Now there's another member of the family needing vengeance."

"Don't fret over it." Her voice was cold. "This one joined the Dark Brotherhood. Assassins ought to know their risks. As for the guard, waste no sympathy on him. He worked in their dungeon—as torturer." She stood, slipping note and ring back into their places. "Since your cat was the one who ripped him up, I'm going to move him away from the camp. With any luck, whoever finds him will think he just ran into a saber or a passing troll."

"Will it make any difference?"

She shrugged. "Probably not; they'll just send another assassin to finish the job he botched. I've either got to find whoever is hiring them or slaughter the whole blasted group one at a time." Grunting with exertion, she lifted the body off the ground. "Once I get him away from here, I'll take next watch. It's about time, anyway."

* * *

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. Fearless found and trampled a few skeevers into mush, and Ravenlight shot a frostbite spider drawn into the area. But nothing else threatened them, and by the time morning dawned, they were both rested and ready to continue. Rather than cook, Ravenlight dug a chunk of thick, fat-streaked roasted meat out of her pack, slicing it into thinner strips with a steel dagger.

"Here," she offered, handing half of the strips to Drizzt. "We can eat on the road. I'd like to reach Riften before midmorning."

Drizzt accepted the meat. "Do you have business in Riften?"

Ravenlight considered, then shook her head. "No, thank the Divines. I hate Riften; it's a nasty place, swarming with thieves and worse. And it smells like an open sewer. We're just heading there so I can get my bearings on this...Stony Creek Cave, I think it's called." She pulled out a map and consulted it, running her finger over it. "Yes; it's easiest reached on a bearing from Riften. I don't plan to enter the city itself."

"A city of thieves, eh?" Drizzt grimaced. "Let me guess; Thieves' Guild runs the place?"

"Not really." Ravenlight sliced a small chunk off a strip of meat. "There _is_ a Thieves' Guild, and rumor has it they're backed by one of the Black-Briars, a wealthy and very powerful family in the region. But I encountered them once; they're not exactly in their glory days. Their unofficial leader tried to recruit me."

"What did you tell him?" Drizzt glanced sideways at her.

"Nothing that would burn any bridges; I might need to deal with him or his underlings later. But I have no love for thieves or their ilk." Ravenlight popped the small chunk into her mouth.

"Nor do I; though the skills of a thief do sometimes come in handy." Drizzt took a bite of the meat. It had an unusual taste, and was marbled with fat so thick it was like blubber. But it had been cooked well enough that the fat was more like tallow than rubber, and, while it wasn't easy to chew, it could be done.

"Won't argue with you there." She grinned. "There have been a number of times when skill with a lockpick is most useful."

"You can pick locks?"

She shrugged modestly. "I'm not an expert, but yes, I can do it."

"So what do you break into?"

"Cells and chests, mostly. Usually in old tombs or bandit hideaways. Once I picked the lock of a house belonging to a woman I suspected was a vampire."

"Was she?" Drizzt looked over at Ravenlight, alarm on his face.

"She most certainly was." Ravenlight grimaced. "Though she wasn't at home at that point, either. She'd left her journal behind, though, and I had all the evidence I needed in that. The Jarl sent me after the master vampire who'd turned her, Movarth. I found the woman in his den after I'd cleared it out."

Drizzt looked her over curiously. She hadn't spoken casually of the encounter, but she also didn't seem to have had any problems with the vampires. "You didn't have any trouble?"

She grinned. "I'm sneaky. You'll have your chance to see once we get into that Stony Creek Cave. I don't plan to go in openly."

* * *

The morning dew had just started to burn away when the gray walls of Riften reared up in front of them. Ravenlight glanced to the side, drew Fearless to a halt, and swung down.

"All right, you," she said, stroking his neck. "You get to stay here in the stable for a little while. It's not as luxurious a place as Haemar's stable, but the stablehand knows me. He'll take care of you."

"You're not taking him any further?" Drizzt looked at her curiously.

Ravenlight shook her head. "No. We're heading into unfamiliar territory, and I don't want him hurt. Besides which, Ranulf does know me. I paid a debt for him when I first arrived in Riften, after I heard some thuggish enforcer—I think for the Black-Briars—threatening him over it."

"You paid for him without knowing him?" Drizzt tried not to be impressed.

"I don't like bullies. And, while I'm not averse to starting a fight, I'd rather not do it in the middle of town, unless I'm attacked first." She shrugged. "And I tend to carry a lot of coin. It's easy to find in bandit hideouts and tombs. Ranulf's not a bad sort. It wasn't a difficult decision."

"What wasn't?" A raggedly-dressed man came out from behind the stable. His eyes lit up as he saw her. "Ravenlight!"

"Hello again, Ranulf," she greeted, smiling at him kindly. "Would you keep Fearless here for me? I'm about to head into parts unknown, and I don't want to risk him."

"Of course." He took the bridle, stroking the horse's velvet neck. "And you don't have to pay."

"Don't be ridiculous." Ravenlight pulled a handful of coins out of her pack, pressing them into his hand. "Just because you don't have a debt any longer doesn't mean you don't need to eat. And I can certainly afford a few septims for having my horse tended."

"Thank you." He accepted the coins, tucking them away. "I'll treat him well."

"I know you will." Ravenlight gave him one last smile, then looked up, pulling her map out again and consulting it. "Hmmm...ah. That's our heading."

Drizzt dismounted, stroking Andohar. Ranulf saw the unicorn, and his eyes bulged. "Th-that—is that—?"

"A summoned mount." Drizzt gave the faithful creature one last pat, then dismissed him. "A creature from a different plane."

Ranulf swallowed. "I...don't know..."

"Suspicious of magic?" Drizzt smiled. "I knew someone else who had the same opinion."

"Oh?" Ranulf and Ravenlight gave him a similar curious, cocked-head look. "Who was he?"

"A friend." He smiled as he remembered his days with the powerful young barbarian, Wulfgar. "A good friend."

"I'm glad to hear that," Ravenlight said matter-of-factly. "You're going to encounter a lot of similar feelings toward magic in Skyrim; and to be fair, if what I've heard about the Mage's College is true, it's understandable." She chuckled at Ranulf's stunned expression. "It's all right, Ranulf; he won't do it in front of you again. I should be back in less than four days to retrieve Fearless. And tell your master that if he 'accidentally' sells my horse, he will _not _like what happens."

Ranulf nodded, slowly looking less floored. "I will be certain to tell him, my lady."

Ravenlight headed off the road into the forest to the north of the walls. Drizzt followed. "Accidentally sells your horse?" he asked, incredulous.

Her mouth twisted. "I don't have proof, but I do know that a number of people have complained about their horses disappearing from that stable—and I overheard a confrontation where two people argued that they had paid good coin for the same horse."

"Did you do anything for that?"

She rolled her eyes. "What _could _I have done? Get in there and accuse a stablemaster? Besides which, they were both Nords, and it was too close to Windhelm for my liking. Elves of any sort are looked down on in Windhelm; my presence wouldn't have helped. In fact, it might have made things worse."

"Elves are disliked in Windhelm?" He frowned. "Why?"

"Thank the Aldmeri Dominion," she answered shortly. "Also called the Thalmor. They attacked the Empire fifty years ago, nearly destroyed it. The Empire managed to save itself by signing a treaty with them. But their demands were not well-taken by many in Skyrim—and Windhelm isn't the only place that dislikes Elves. Most Nords don't differentiate between the Elf branches; we're all just Mer to them."

"I take it that's something of a sore spot?" Drizzt ducked under a low-hanging branch, pushing a tangle of ivy out of his way.

"Something," she answered dryly. "Especially for Bosmer. I don't mind being disliked for being Bosmer; my kind do have a...reputation for being a bit on the light-fingered side. But being disliked because of the Great War? Yes, that irritates me. Wood Elves didn't fight on the side of the Thalmor—and we suffered for it."

"Suffered how?" Drizzt looked over at her, hearing the pain in her voice.

Ravenlight paused and looked down. "I don't know all that went on," she admitted. "Our village is small and out of the way; something that's protected us a number of times over the years. But Valenwood came under the Thalmor's wrath during the Great War. They did their best to wipe us out altogether."

"What?" Drizzt stared at her, shocked. "Wipe out...the Bosmer? Wood Elves?"

"Yes. I don't know why. But there were a number of villages destroyed during what they called the Purge." She shook her head. "We were lucky. Our village is so small virtually everything ignores it. But a number of larger, neighboring villages were destroyed completely." She looked away. "My littlest brother...we still haven't told him. We were investigating the ruins of a Purged village when my sister Hawkmane found a five-week-old baby hidden in the rubble. The rest of his family lay slaughtered around the house. We took him in and raised him." She bowed her head. "He was the only survivor, out of the entire village."

Drizzt looked away, the memory of a similar incident in his past bubbling painfully to the surface. It wasn't something he wanted to talk about—particularly since, while he had not participated in the slaughter, he _had _been in the group that destroyed the village. The incident had occurred more than fifty years ago, but the memory still haunted him.

A sound distracted him: a thick, drawn-out growl, ending in a hoarse grunt. Ravenlight dropped into a crouch, flipping her bow off her back and into her hand. His hands dropped to his scimitars.

"Where is it?" he whispered, his eyes flicking through the woods.

"There." Ravenlight half-raised her hand and gestured toward it. He followed her motion and saw the bear, which watched them suspiciously from less than fifty feet away. It reared up and sniffed, then growled again.

"Could we just go past it?" Drizzt was no stranger to bears. But this one was much bigger—and looked much _meaner—_than the ones he was familiar with. He wasn't sure he wanted to deal with it.

Ravenlight shook her head, pulling out an arrow. "Even if we did, we'd have to pass this way again while coming back. One way or another, it's likely to attack us."

"How shall we take it down, then?" Drizzt easily resigned himself to fighting off the great brute.

"I'll start with a few arrows. It should come after me; you wait until it's on me before you come in. Try to get it through the ribs or in the throat, that'll drop it faster." Ravenlight set the arrow to the bow, her eyes narrowing, her face growing grim. "Get ready, Drizzt; this is going to happen fast."

It did.

The bear, already irritated by the presence of the two strangers in its territory, bellowed with rage as Ravenlight's arrow sank into its ribs. Ignoring the poison entirely, it charged, ripping the earth with its claws as it bore down on the slim Elf. She stood her ground, firing a second, then a third arrow, each one striking home. But it wasn't enough, and she barely dodged out of the way in time as it lashed out with a huge, claw-tipped paw.

Drizzt was up behind it at once, darting into the danger zone to sink Twinkle deep into the bear's chest. It roared in anguish, trying to turn on him. Fortunately—or unfortunately—Twinkle penetrated a rib as well as a lung, and stuck. The bear's motion slung him around out of range of teeth and swipe, and before it could shake him off, a second blade sank into it from the other side. The second blow briefly enveloped it in a sheet of flames, before Drizzt finally pulled Twinkle free and struck again, this time at the neck. A gush of blood flooded out, and the bear, after one last swat, collapsed, dead, onto the ground.

The last swat, though, had gone home. Drizzt sheathed Icingdeath, trying not to swear as he realized his right elbow was either broken or dislocated. Pain he could handle. He'd taken worse. But still...

"Hold on a moment." Ravenlight came up beside him, sheathing her fire-wreathed sword. "Got you, did he? I took a smack myself, almost broke my collarbone." She placed her hand over the joint, gently testing to see whether it was truly dislocated or not. "Bit of a fracture there; and that's not a great place to get it. Feels straight, though...all right."

She closed her eyes and concentrated. Golden light bloomed out of her hand, surrounding the injury. A familiar soothing warmth penetrated his arm, and as before, he could feel the injury healing. It took roughly ten seconds before she took her hand away, nodding in satisfaction.

"There we go."

He flexed his arm, smiling a little as it obeyed him without a hint of stiffness or lingering pain. "You're truly an excellent healer," he praised, resheathing Twinkle.

"I have to be," Ravenlight said simply, kneeling down beside the bear's carcass. "I got out of the way of that slap in time _not _tobreak my collarbone, but I'm not always that quick or that lucky. I'm fast, sneaky, light on my feet, and I poison my weapons; but I'm not big or strong. And those are what count more in a lot of situations. I have to be a skilled healer, and I have to carry a good supply of healing potions—because I'm injured frequently. And I can't afford to be laid up in the wild."

"I understand that." Drizzt saw what she was doing and joined her, helping her remove the huge pelt. "Getting a serious wound out in the middle of nowhere could put a quick end to any and all adventures afterward."

"And worse, because..." She looked up at him gravely, then shook her head. "Never mind. Not yet."

He glanced at her, eyebrows raised. She looked resolutely down at the bear, her lips set in a firm line. The subject was closed.

* * *

The trek to Stony Creek Cave took roughly five hours; partly because of the miles they had to walk, and partly because every predatory animal in the area decided to come after them. Once, while they were fighting off a small pack of wolves, Drizzt thought he saw a strange, blueish essence stream out of the wolves Ravenlight shot and into her pack, but he decided not to mention it.

Several times, she paused to gather small blue, red or purple flowers, or pick mushrooms off fallen trees. When she noticed him watching, she smiled.

"Easier to gather things from the wild, sometimes, than to buy them from the shops. Cheaper, too."

"So you'll use those for potions?" Drizzt nodded, suddenly understanding.

"Yes." She held up one of the blue flowers she had just picked. "This has a healing effect; the purple ones restore magic, while the red ones provide energy." She smiled wryly. "They can also be poisonous, so I'm careful with them."

Drizzt eyed her, remembering that this generous, friendly woman was, by her own admittance, also a skilled poisoner. "So, how many other things have you found around here that are poisonous?"

"There's a number of things." She straightened. "Nirnroot, for starters; imp stool mushrooms; nightshade and deathbells, those ought to be obvious. But," she grinned at him impishly, "lest you quail with fear at how familiar I am with things that can kill you, let me remind you once again that I am more familiar with things that will heal. I also know of several items that can go into antidotes—or, if not antidotes, at least provide a resistance to poison."

She straightened, putting the flowers away. "I'll give you a more detailed alchemy lesson later. For now, let's get to this cave."

Drizzt glanced ahead and frowned. "Can I see the map?"

"Certainly." She pulled out the parchment and handed it to him. "It's enchanted, by the way. It'll show where we are, and our destination."

"Yes, I see that." Drizzt looked at the map, then looked up and pointed. "I think the cave is right over...there."

She followed his gaze and sighed. "Yes, that's the place. Well...that's pleasant." She sighed, pulling her helmet off and running her fingers through her hair. "I hope you don't mind getting soaked. No telling how deep that water is."

Stoney Creek Cave, as it turned out, was accurately named. A natural tunnel that permitted a stream to flow through the rock...and emptied directly into a pond some twenty feet across. As it turned out, it didn't get much deeper than shoulder height, but Ravenlight tripped at one point and disappeared under the water. She came up again quickly, gasping and sputtering—and after that, she simply swam. Drizzt kept closer to the wall of rock, where it was slightly shallower, and only got wet up to his waist. They came up into the shallow mouth of the cave at the same time, Ravenlight dripping water out of almost every portion of her armor, Drizzt wringing out his cloak and pulling off his boots to empty them.

"Pleasant," he said wryly. He'd been in colder water before, but that didn't mean he'd enjoyed the icy slog.

"You should try a dip in one of the lakes," Ravenlight answered, pulling off a gauntlet to shake water out of it. "Especially that one...I think northeast of Whiterun, up by the mountains. It's nearly in the tundra, and it's cold enough to have ice around the edges. I was making my way around that and stepped through the edge of the ice. You talk about cold!"

Drizzt flinched. "I once fell though ice into a river. Nearly drowned—and I was on the verge of freezing to death after I got out."

"Being able to cast fire is a great bonus." Ravenlight demonstrated, cupping small flames in her hand and using them to dry herself. "I've never been on the verge of freezing to death, and you won't either, not if you stick with me."

Drizzt smiled at her, then looked into the cave. "All right; let's go."

* * *

As a bandit lair, the place was disappointing. Besides the constant danger of slipping on the wet rocks and getting another soaking—or cracking their heads—the bandits themselves weren't particularly strong, certainly nothing like the dangerous lot at Valthiem Towers. But there was a fair amount of loot, and Ravenlight seemed pleased. Even if a little underwhelmed.

"Not as worrying as I thought it might be," she said, digging through the large chest in the big room. "This was a pretty pathetic bunch. Ah, here it is." She removed a stringed instrument. "This is what Inge Six-Fingers back at the Bard's College wanted me to retrieve. Oh, this is a little more like it. Drizzt, catch!"

He turned, his hands flashing out to catch several sparkling stones flung in his direction. He looked down at them. "Garnets? You're giving me these?"

She grinned at him, standing up from her rifling. "I have plenty of them. You can get a fair price from Olga Grey-Mane or Belethor in Whiterun; probably a better-than-fair price up in Solitude, which is where we'll be heading once I retrieve Fearless. Myself, I know how to make jewelry; but I haven't found the raw ore to do so yet. You need those far more than I."

He nodded in agreement and slipped the gemstones into his belt pouch. Ravenlight stood and moved back into the tunnel. "This looks like it goes on for a little ways further. I'm going to snoop around a bit more, see if there's anything we've missed. I'll yell if it starts looking dangerous; but unless it opens onto a draugr tomb or a Falmer lair, it probably won't." She gestured around them at the barrels and sacks. "Anything I didn't get into is free pickings. Take whatever you want."

Ravenlight crouched and slipped away, vanishing into the half-light of the tunnel almost at once. Drizzt shrugged and decided to try his hand at the same shameless looting skills his new companion displayed. Most of the barrels and sacks only held food supplies, but there were worse things to gather up. At the very least, this would ensure his provisions didn't run out any time soon. He also found a few interesting weapons; not that he needed any new ones, but they could be sold.

His head came up at the sound of a startled yell, the clash of weapons, then a crash from further down the cave. "Ravenlight?"

"I'm all right," her voice echoed back. "We missed one and I ran into her. It's clear."

Drizzt followed the tunnel down into a large, open room. A waterfall fell from a large opening in the rock above them, filling a large pool that fed the stream. Blood currently stained the water, seeping from the body of a bandit floating face-down in the pool. Ravenlight stood to the side, applying healing magic to a long cut on her arm. She looked up as he came in.

"There's a chest over there, on the other side of the pool," she said. "And I've found some veins of moonstone. That's not an easily-obtained material, so I'm going to dig some out before we leave here."

"Where will we be going after we finish here?" Drizzt opened the chest, digging through the assorted valuables inside.

Ravenlight took a pick lying to the side and began swinging it at the veins, loosening the chunks of whitish-golden metal. "Back to Riften. If I've left Fearless someplace safe in the wilds, he'll hear my whistle and find me anywhere in Skyrim. But when he's in a stable, I always find it wiser to stop back by the stable and pick him up myself. It's going to be pretty late by the time we get back there, though, so we should rent a couple rooms at the Bee and Barb and rest for at least a few hours before riding on to Solitude—because that will be a long ride."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Future updates will not be so quick; this took a couple of months to fully hash out. It was simply finished at the time I posted the first chapter. But with any luck, I will be able to continue updating with some regularity.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**: **I Tell You, I Tell You**...

Evening painted the forest gold as the Drow and Bosmer made their way back from the bandit lair. Knowing that nothing waited for them in ambush put both at ease, and they chatted as they made their way along the rough path.

They kept the subjects light, neither one wanting to get into anything too heavy or personal. Ravenlight told stories of her family back in Valenwood; Drizzt mostly contributed humorous incidents from his years of adventuring.

Then something huge swooped overhead, something massive bellowed. Ravenlight and Drizzt jerked up at the same time, eyes widening.

"What in Nine Hells?" Drizzt started to look around, but Ravenlight grabbed his arm.

"_Run!"_

They both exploded into motion; not the steady lope they normally used to travel, but an all-out dash. Ravenlight kept wheeling, looking up at the sky. "Blast you," she muttered angrily, "where are you?"

"What is it?" Drizzt looked around himself, not knowing quite what he was looking for. "What was that?"

"Dragon!" Ravenlight looked around again, pulling out her bow. "Do you have a bow, Drizzt?"

"Yes!"

"Good!" She hissed, her lips drawing back in a feral grimace as she saw the creature circling overhead. "There it is. Blood dragon, drat it all! This will not be easy. Get your bow out and run on a ways! I'm going to draw its fire. Hurry!" She stopped, turning on her heel, and put an arrow to her bow, drawing it back to her cheek.

Drizzt ran on a few steps, then turned back, pulling out his own bow, Taumaril. He gasped when he saw it: a huge, greenish-brown beast, pausing for just a moment to hover over the Wood Elf. Ravenlight stood her ground, firing several arrows up at it. It exhaled, a sheet of ice covering her. Drizzt yelled in fury, yanking one of the enchanted arrows out of his quiver and sending it up toward the beast to strike in a fierce explosion and a shower of sparks. The dragon howled in agony, jerking slightly, then beat its wings and sailed up again, bellowing.

Ravenlight reappeared, her armor coated in rime, lowering a bottle from her lips and gasping. Drizzt ran up to her, noting in alarm that her movements were slow and sluggish.

"Ravenlight! Are you—"

She nodded, shivering a little. "F-f-fine, actually. Drinking these darn things like I like the taste. Move! It's not gone!"

She shoved him hard and sprang back as another gust of ice slammed into the ground between them, her hand darting up to her quiver and sending another arrow up at the enraged dragon. Drizzt rolled several feet, avoiding the freezing blast, then was up on his feet and sending several arrows up at the creature himself. Each one of the enchanted arrows struck home, as did Ravenlight's poison-coated ones. The dragon screamed in pain and fury, and—

Said something. Drizzt couldn't understand it, but Ravenlight started. Then she sent another arrow up, and the dragon staggered, sailing away.

"It's grounded!" Ravenlight sprang forward. "After it! I am not just letting it get away!"

Drizzt grabbed her arm as the ground shook under them. "What did it say?"

"No idea."

"I saw you start."

She looked at him, her amber eyes wild with battle light. "Of course I started, it recognized me! Come on! I'll explain once it's dead!"

This was reasonable. Drizzt followed her down the slope. "Where did it land?"

The answer came in a biting blast of cold from directly in front of them. Ravenlight vanished in the mist. He thought he heard her shouting—but couldn't be sure, not in the rush and the freeze. His limbs felt like lead, the cold was worse than being in the middle of an Icewind Dale blizzard—

"Move, Drizzt! Run! Blast it—_FUS!_"

Something slammed into him from the side, knocking him rolling just before the dragon's head appeared behind its blast of cold. He heard the huge jaws snap on the air, right where he had been a moment before. Ravenlight appeared on the other side of it, her fiery sword in hand. She darted to the side of the dragon, hacking at it with all her strength. Blood ran down the side of her face—he wasn't sure how it had happened. Still freezing, his head ringing from the force of whatever had flung him, he staggered to his feet.

The dragon was trying to attack the Elf, but she had gone in behind the useless wings—where it could reach her with neither teeth nor tail. He charged in on the other side, Twinkle and Icingdeath practically flying into his hands. He didn't stab—not into that strong hide. Instead, he slashed, opening huge rents in the beast's arrow-studded body. Blood streamed out, splashing him and pooling onto the ground. The dragon turned, somehow, and Drizzt heard Ravenlight scream. He swung again, fiercely, not sure what else he could do.

Then—

It roared, one last time, rearing up. Then, with a crash that shook the earth, it collapsed, blood pooling around it. Drizzt slowly backed away, not entirely sure he understood what had happened. _It's dead. It's dead! _A huge grin spread across his face. "We killed it!"

"Sure did," Ravenlight said from the other side of it, between pants. "We did good."

Drizzt hurried around the huge carcass to find his companion sitting on the ground, holding her ribs. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "Winded. Blasted thing managed to swing around. Didn't bite me—ow—but it caught me in the side with its head." She pulled another small, reddish bottle out of her pack, drinking it and grimacing. "Blech. These never taste good."

Drizzt felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck and whirled to face the dragon's body. His eyes widened, and he backed off several steps. It was—shimmering, with a strange, fiery incandescence. Flakes of skin floated away, revealing more of the golden light. Suddenly, with a rushing like a strong wind, the beast's flesh transmuted into light, streaming into Ravenlight. She gasped, tipping her head back and opening her arms, her eyes closed in something almost like ecstasy. When it finished, nothing was left of the dragon but a large skeleton.

Ravenlight stood, opening her eyes. She looked over at Drizzt wryly, a small smile on her face. "Well done, dragon-slayer."

"What just happened?" Drizzt wasn't entirely sure how much he wanted to keep traveling with this woman any more—at least, not until she explained what she had just done to the dragon.

"The answer to that and the answer to your earlier question are related." Ravenlight looked up and sighed. "The dragon called me by the true, defining name I mentioned when we first met. I am Dovahkiin: the Dragonborn."

"Dragonborn?" Drizzt had heard of a strange people with that name in Faerun—but Ravenlight looked nothing like them. "What is that?"

"Apparently it's an old legend here in Skyrim, though the emperors in the line of Tiber Septim were Dragonborn themselves—up to the Oblivion Crisis two hundred years ago, anyway. I've heard it described as a number of ways." Ravenlight rubbed some blood off her face. "Apparently, a Dragonborn is one with the body of a mortal and the soul of a dragon—or the blood of a dragon. The stories don't agree on which it is. But at any rate, the Dragonborn are the only ones who can insure that a dragon _stays _dead—by stealing its soul. Absorbing it. It doesn't require any effort on my part, I can tell you that." She grimaced. "I saw your face; I'm willing to bet I looked almost exactly like that the first time it happened to me. Scared me half to death."

"You looked as if you enjoyed it, just now." Drizzt hesitated. "Almost as if you...took pleasure in it."

"I don't know about pleasure, exactly, but I can say this: it doesn't hurt." She walked up to the dragon's skeleton, retrieving a number of arrows left sticking out of it. "And it does...give me a sense of power, at least for a little while. It doesn't last."

"How much do you enjoy that sense of power?" Drizzt eyed her warily.

Ravenlight looked back at him, exasperated. "_Not _enough to get addicted to dragon-hunting, I can certainly tell you that! And your soul is safe. I can only do it to dragons. Come on. I don't know if you have any arrows to retrieve, but there's plenty of gold on this creature, which you _do _need; and the bones and scales are valuable."

Drizzt nodded slowly. "I guess...I don't understand, but you...maybe I'll learn more about it later." He gasped, his head coming up. "Wait—that song, the one Mikhail was singing in the Bannered Mare, about the Dragonborn. Was that about you?"

"Yes." She grimaced again. "I'm never sure whether it's ridiculously ostentatious or not—especially since I like the song."

He laughed then. "It's a good song. But you're right; liking a song you know has been written about you, whether you know the writer or not, can be mistaken for vanity." He joined her at the carcass, gathering up fallen scales, and noting that a number of them had bits of gold stuck to them. "What do you do with these?"

"Me? Sell them, mostly." Ravenlight tugged several smaller bones out of the skeleton. "I think the alchemists grind them up, and people probably like them as curiosities. If you want to do something with them, be my guest. I know the scales can be made into armor, but I have no idea how to do that."

"Huh." He gathered up a few more. "These aren't light, though."

"No, which is why I don't think I'll invest any time in learning how to make dragon-scale armor. No desire to go hunting the beasts for armor components. Huh!" Ravenlight removed a ten-inch-long bone from one of the wings. It was almost perfectly straight. "I've never seen one of these come loose before."

"What is it?" Drizzt looked back at her curiously.

"A wing bone, I think. Interesting; this is lighter than they normally are." She weighed it in her hand, then turned to Drizzt. "Want it?"

"What would I do with it?" He took the offered bone, looking down at it curiously.

"Anything you wanted. Just consider it a souvenir of the first dragon you killed." Ravenlight tugged another small bone loose and grunted. "That's enough for now, this is getting heavy."

Drizzt backed off himself, having gathered up as many scales and all the gold as he could. He flinched as the wind picked up, the cold gusts irritating the frost-burns on his face. He'd taken worse wounds before; considerably worse. And he was used to cold now. It wasn't as if he was still a youngster encountering winter for the first time.

Still, it hurt.

"Here."

He instinctively caught the pottery bottle Ravenlight tossed to him. "What's this?"

"A healing potion; pretty good one. You were caught in that blast for a while, and probably took more damage than you realize." She looked at him, her mouth twisted to the side. "Trust me. You know when you've taken fire burns because of how badly they hurt. But frost burns? They're not always felt. Always best to heal up afterward. Oh, and drink it fast; don't stop to taste. Believe me, it's a good potion, but it tastes horrible."

"They rarely do." He threw it down, half-expecting the sour, foul-tasting mess he'd once had in the halls of Menzoberranzan. This...was not remotely similar, and the powdery aftertaste was almost the worst thing he'd ever encountered. "Gak." He swallowed again and shuddered. "That is...awful. What's in it?"

"Monarch butterfly wings, blue mountain flowers, and...I think that one also had wheat in it." Ravenlight took the empty bottle and sniffed it. "No, not wheat; swamp fungus pods." She put the small bottle away and pulled out a larger, green-glass one, wrapped in wicker. "Here; take a swig of this. It'll clear the aftertaste."

Drizzt recognized the scent of the spiced wine she'd given him the first day. He gladly took a mouthful, gratitude beyond words surging through him as it did, indeed, wash away the horrendous flavor. "Ugh." He touched his face, noting that, awful as it tasted, it worked—and quickly. "Was this what you were drinking?"

"That and others. I carry as many healing potions as I can." She grimaced. "Throw enough of them down and you almost stop noticing how bad they are, though I've never got used to the aftertaste."

"Ugh." He handed the wine bottle back. "No wonder you're so skilled in healing magic."

Ravenlight looked at him in surprise, then laughed. "That's not really the reason," she said, her eyes sparkling with a teasing light. "But it would be accurate to say I'm as good as I am at healing _others _because I don't want to subject my comrades to my potions!"

* * *

Darkness had fallen by the time they reached the gates of Riften, and the guards on duty regarded Drizzt even more suspiciously than the ones in front of Whiterun had. More surprising was the brusque, irritated way Ravenlight reacted.

"Who's he?" the man asked, gesturing to Drizzt.

"A friend of mine," she said, her voice just a few degrees below an irritated snap. "And as such, he should be under the same right of passage I _bought _to get into this cesspit of a city when I first arrived!"

The guards looked at each other, and one of them started to reach for his weapons. But the second moved over to him quickly, speaking in a soft voice. Drizzt couldn't quite hear what he said, but he thought he heard the words _dragon, Dragonborn, chaos in the Ratway, _and _don't push it_. Ravenlight stood there, scowling, her arms crossed.

"All right," the first guard said reluctantly. "Go on through."

"_Thank _you." Ravenlight beckoned to Drizzt and pushed past, glowering at the men as she did.

"That was harsh," he muttered as they entered the city. His nose wrinkled as the smell hit him; it did, indeed, smell something like an open sewer. "I'm sure they were just doing their jobs."

"Not in Riften," Ravenlight answered. "In Whiterun, yes. In Solitude, yes. In Winterhold and Dawngard and Falkreath, and most of the other cities and villages of Skyrim, they would be doing their jobs. These creeps? That was an attempted shakedown. I paid them the first time I came here; but I've got a bit more of a reputation now, and I don't have to put up with that." She looked over at him. "And you shouldn't have to, either."

"I admit, I don't mind not having to pay to enter a place like this." He looked around. "Is this place…friendly?"

"Friendly, no. Or at least not really. Dangerous? It can be. But for two like you and I, who have fought worse than a few petty thieves, we should be all right." Ravenlight beckoned as they reached a bridged area. "Watch your step over this way. Riften has two levels, and the areas down by the canals are dangerous. The Bee and Barb is right across that first bridge."

Just as they reached the bridge, a commotion in the market area caught Drizzt's attention, and he jerked up. "What the—"

"Thief," Ravenlight answered, grimacing. "Grabbed something and ran, most likely."

"Should we do anything?" Drizzt could barely see what was going on in the jumble of stalls and railings.

"I've never been able to get over there fast enough to make any sort of difference." Ravenlight sighed. "Nor do I particularly know what I'd do."

Drizzt grimaced. "I don't like this place."

"Believe me. Neither do I."

The Bee and Barb had a relatively calm, secure atmosphere; not as pleasant as the Bannered Mare, perhaps, but better than the streets—and much more so than a number of the inns and taverns Drizzt was used to back in Faerun. Ravenlight left him standing by the fire and went to purchase their rooms from the strange, lizard-woman at the counter.

Drizzt noticed that a number of people were giving him curious looks. He wasn't sure if it was because he was traveling with Ravenlight, or…he remembered then that she mentioned his coloring was unusual. _Not a monster, at least; but most assuredly oddity_. Suddenly self-conscious, he flipped his hood up.

"New to Riften?"

Grateful for a relatively friendly voice, Drizzt turned to see a strapping, well-armored woman, her dark hair accented by a stripe of reddish-brown war paint down across one side of her face and a two-handed war axe prominent over her back.

"You could say that," he answered. "I'm traveling with Ravenlight."

"Ah, the woman who caused such a stir in the Ratways." The warrior laughed. "Not that anyone here cares if she got the Thalmor's knickers in a twist. Though a number of folk _were_ wondering what was going on to make those pests interested in her." She cocked her head and eyed him as if asking for news.

He shrugged. "I don't know myself. I met her barely four days ago."

"Eh, it was a few months back." The woman looked him over curiously. "I'm Mjoll, the Lioness. Formerly a wandering adventurer, now settled down in Riften."

"Drizzt Do'Urden." He bowed slightly. "I'm an adventurer myself. What made you stop?"

"Lost my sword, Grimsever, when I explored the Dwarf ruin Mzincheluft. I was lucky to escape the place at all; took the loss of my sword as a sign that it was time to settle down." She sighed. "I wouldn't go back there for a pile of gold, but I wouldn't mind getting my sword back."

_Dwarf ruin_. Drizzt smiled a little. "I might go down there; keep an eye out for it, if you'd like."

Mjoll smiled. "That would be most kind of you. Be cautious, though." Her eyes grew wary. "Mzincheluft is a dangerous place, not to be taken lightly. I barely escaped there alive."

"Sounds like a number of places I've entered." _Almost sounds like where I was _born_. _"But I will keep your warning in mind."

"I said_ two_ rooms."

Drizzt's gaze shot over to where Ravenlight stood in front of the lizard-woman, her arms grimly folded and her eyes snapping. He'd never heard her sound that cold before, and wondered what had just happened.

The innkeeper raised her scaly hands in a pacifying gesture. "Two rooms it is then. The price is right, it shall be arranged…but you must admit, it is not unnatural to think thus, when a pretty woman comes in with a handsome man."

_Oh_. He realized suddenly that some of the people in the inn were looking back and forth between the two of them with curious expressions. And the innkeeper was right; it wasn't unusual to assume that a man and woman traveling together were…doing more than just traveling. _Well_. He was not entirely surprised when Ravenlight, her cheeks a rather pleasing shade of red, stalked over in a huff. Nor did it surprise him when she did not immediately acknowledge him.

At least, she didn't look at him. "Our rooms are upstairs," she said shortly. "We'll be leaving early tomorrow, so get as much sleep as you can. I'm going up to mine now." She nodded to Mjoll and vanished through the hall that led to the rough stairs leading to the loft.

"Touchy on that subject," Mjoll noted.

"I think I understand both points of view," Drizzt admitted, rubbing his hair under his hood. "It _is _understandable, but…no. She and I just _met_. We're not…no."

Mjoll laughed. "And I understand that, even if no one else will." She glanced at the loft. "Where are the two of you riding?"

"Solitude. We retrieved something for the Bard's College, and are heading up that way tomorrow."

She whistled. "That _will _be a long ride. You might want to join your companion in sleep, Drizzt Do'Urden; it's almost two day's solid travel—_if _you don't stop along the way."

* * *

Ravenlight woke at five in the morning, sandy-eyed and groggy. She rolled over, waiting for her eyes to focus, and grumbling softly to herself. _Another bad night. I really need to do something about these nightmares_. She just wasn't sure what that might be.

_I've heard rumor that Dawnguard is suffering from nightmares. Might be worth going there to see, and maybe find out if I can put my mind to rest at night_. She had seen Alduin again, and this time he had attacked Whiterun. She had been unable to act; forced to watch as her chosen home and the people in it burned. _That _will _not happen, _she vowed. _I won't let it_.

Finally awake, she stood, stretching to get rid of the lingering stiffness that happened when she slept in her armor. "All right," she muttered to herself. "Best to start now."

Remembering the first impressions of the innkeeper, Ravenlight was careful not to go into Drizzt's room. Instead, she stood outside and knocked on the door. At once, she heard the rhythm of his breathing change, and knew he was awake. "Drizzt?"

He could move like a cat. She barely heard his steps as he came to the door. "What is it?" He sounded groggy—but his movements were too sure for that to be true.

"It's morning, and I'm wanting to leave. Do you want to meet me out in front of the stable, or in the common room?"

"Common room. I'll be down in a moment."

The common room of the Bee and Barb was blessedly quiet at five in the morning. Ravenlight decided against trying to order anything to eat, seeing as the innkeeper was herself still in bed, and resigned herself to another breakfast of bread and cold meat. _I am making sure to take time to cook something later today_.

She glanced at the stairs to see Drizzt coming down, dressed and more alert than he had sounded barely four minutes ago. _He _is _good. He was probably wide awake the minute I knocked_. "Ready for some hard riding?" she asked as he came up to her.

He gave her a slightly lopsided smile. "Hopefully no harder than Fearless can handle," he returned. "Andohar will have no trouble with it."

"And with any luck, neither will we." She strode out the door, and he followed.

"How far away, exactly, is Solitude?" he asked as he followed her through the quiet, almost deserted streets.

"Good long distance," Ravenlight admitted. "Clear on the other side of Skyrim. We'll be following the roads to get there, and I'm going to try and bypass Windhelm. Ulfric ought to have no reason to hate the Bard's College, but still."

"You really don't like him." It was a statement.

"No, I don't. He's a hard man; cruel and unforgiving. I don't blame him for his dislike of the Forsworn, but what he did in Markarth…and I don't know whether or not High King Torryg was armed when Ulfric went after him with the Voice." She shook her head. "Whether he was armed or not, the Voice isn't something to use lightly."

"What is the Voice? I've never heard of anything similar." Drizzt looked at her curiously as they passed through the gate.

Ravenlight hesitated. "It's a…special power," she finally said. "I know how to use it, but few others do. There's the Greybeards, a reclusive order up on the Throat of the World; and Ulfric must have studied under them in order to learn how to use the shouts. But me…it comes with being Dragonborn."

"Comes with being Dragonborn, how so?" Drizzt blew on his whistle, summoning Andohar before they reached the stable.

"The Voice is the…prerogative of the dragons," she said. "According to the tablets I read on the way up to the Greybeard's monastery, Kyne—which I think is another name for the goddess Kynareth —pitied mankind under the days of the dragon's rule. She persuaded someone called Paarthenax to teach men how to use the Voice. But I…I don't have to be taught."

"Really?" Andohar cantered up and halted beside Drizzt. He stroked the creature's gleaming neck.

"I just have to see a word in the dragon tongue, and it's…burned into my mind. And the dragon souls I've absorbed…they help me understand that word." Ravenlight sighed. "I don't use the shouts all that often, though; only when I must."

"It's wisest to use a power only when it's needed," Drizzt said slowly. "But that _kind _of power…"

"I may retire to High Hrothgar once I've dealt with Alduin." She made a face. "The Blades urge battle; the Greybeards urge caution and responsibility. I'm not sure which way to go—well, I won't once the World-Eater is dead. But as long as Alduin is alive and threatening everything in Nirn, my course is clear."

Fearless snorted, prancing a little where he stood outside the stable. He saw Ravenlight and trotted up to her, clouds of steam billowing from his nostrils. She smiled at him, stroking his side. "You're up almost as early as we are," she greeted, patting the glossy coat. "Were you giving Ranulf trouble, so he let you go outside?"

The horse dipped his big head and snorted again, pawing the ground with a bucket-sized hoof. She chuckled and swung up onto his back. "All right then. Let's be off."

* * *

The first day was uneventful. After yesterday's clash with the dragon, two frostbite spiders and one pack of wolves were barely worth mentioning. It wasn't until the following morning, as they camped by the side of the road, that the real trouble came.

Ravenlight turned a haunch of venison over the small, smokeless fire Drizzt built. He sat on a fallen log, looking over the light, straight wing bone, and wondering if he could try and make it into something. He was focused on it closely enough to not actually notice the sudden change in tension. But he felt the hairs on his neck prickle, and looked up.

Ravenlight stared down the road, her entire frame rigid and her right hand straying close to the hilt of her sword. Drizzt put the bone away and stood, following her gaze to see…

Five strangers, three in armor similar to hers, two in elaborate dark-blue robes. They strode along the road, coming toward them.

Drizzt's eyes narrowed. "Who are they?"

"Not entirely sure, but those two are wearing Thalmor robes." Ravenlight lowered her head, her lips drawing back from her teeth. "Don't start anything…but be ready to fight. They may attack."

"Who exactly are the Thalmor, anyway?"

"Leaders of the High Elves; the Aldmiri Dominion. They're willing to use any means, fair or foul—mostly foul—to advance their people. Nasty group." She didn't draw her sword, but her hand curled around the hilt. "And I've clashed with them."

"I heard something about that. In the Ratways?"

"Yes." She fell silent as the group came in earshot. Fearless snorted, shifting his weight from side to side. Drizzt tried not to be obvious about resting his hands on the hilts of his scimitars.

For a moment, it looked as though the Thalmor were going to pass them by. Then one of the robed men looked over at them, a sneer on his angular, gold-skinned face—and froze.

"You!"

Ravenlight and Drizzt whipped their blades out and dove to the side as he hurled a bolt of crackling blue lightning at them. The others turned and saw her rolling back up to her feet. Instantly, they drew their blades, and the second mage joined by hurling several jagged spikes of ice. She dodged, the spikes barely missing her. Drizzt sprang forward to engage the soldiers as Ravenlight, spinning and springing from side to side to avoid ice spikes and bolts of fire, took on the mages.

The three soldiers were good. They struck fast, changed position quickly, and might have posed a problem for Drizzt…forty years earlier. He whirled and twisted, easily parrying their thrusts, Twinkle and Icingdeath flashing in arcs almost too fast to see.

In contrast to Drizzt's flashy skill, Ravenlight was considerably more direct—and the two mages quickly realized that standing close together was a bad idea. They separated, forcing her to choose between them. Without hesitation, she went after the one throwing ice spells. A finger of blue lightning danced over her. Impressively, she ignored it. In less than three seconds, she was on the first mage, striking swift and hard. His scream as fire enveloped him was cut off as her second blow plunged the sword into his chest.

The second mage had stopped firing at her, and Ravenlight looked wildly for him, hoping that he wasn't providing backup for the beleaguered soldiers Drizzt toyed with. Then she saw the reason. He had a new problem to deal with: one with four huge feet. Fearless once more lived up to his name. She charged in to deal with the mage before he could kill her horse.

Drizzt ducked a high swipe and thrust under it, catching one soldier in a chink between his helmet and breastplate. Choking on blood, the Thalmor staggered back and collapsed. Drizzt darted to the side to avoid a vicious stroke aimed at his neck, parried an oncoming stab, and struck. Twinkle's enchanted steel cut through the armor on his opponent's arm, slicing him open to the elbow.

"Wretched beast!"

Fearless screamed with pain as he took a vicious stroke of lightning straight to his chest, staggering back and stumbling. The mage snarled as he aimed a final burst—and found too late that he had overlooked his main enemy. A wordless scream heralded Ravenlight's charge. He turned to strike. Her sword flashed in a fierce, brutal arc, and the mage crumpled, his head rolling several yards away.

One of the Thalmor slipped past Drizzt's defenses, stabbing him in the ribs. The point of his blade hit but didn't penetrate, and before he realized his mistake, Icingdeath flashed in a fatal blur.

The last soldier, clutching his bleeding arm, backed away. "I yield!" he screamed as Drizzt turned to him. "I yield. No more!"

"Run off, then," Ravenlight snarled. "Run hard and fast. And _don't _come back!"

He backed away, then turned and ran. Drizzt wiped his scimitars and sheathed them, glancing over at Ravenlight. She stroked Fearless with one hand, healing the burns on his coat with the other. He shivered violently, his head hanging.

"What's wrong with him?" Drizzt strode up to them.

"He took on the other mage; the lighting-thrower. I think he's mostly scared; it's not a serious injury." She ran the hand wreathed in golden light over the most obvious burn. "But that lightning hurts." She glanced over at Drizzt. "Please tell me I didn't see one of them stab you?"

"Not exactly." Drizzt fingered the hole the blade had left in his tunic. "He tried, but my armor turned it."

"Good. I'm running out of magic over here; you'd have needed another healing potion." She finished and patted Fearless's neck. "Go check the venison, would you? I don't want it to burn."

Drizzt obeyed as Ravenlight knelt over the corpses of their attackers, searching through their packs. He glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for…ah." She stood, a piece of paper in her hand. "I was afraid of this."

"What is it?"

Ravenlight unfolded the paper and scowled down at it. "Execution order. They were sent specifically after me." She looked down the road, crumpling the paper in her hand. "Daedra take it. This means I haven't seen the last of them."

* * *

Even with the specter of Thalmor violence looming over them, the remainder of the trip was uneventful. Evening loomed gold as they rode up to the small farm under the massive, gleaming capitol city to stable their horses, then walked up the sloping streets to the gates.

Drizzt received a number of curious looks as he and Ravenlight strode through the streets, and a number of young women stopped to watch. Several of them blushed and giggled, hoping he would look their way. For his part, he was surprised that the guards, in contrast to the suspicious behavior in Whiterun and Riften, barely gave him more than a cursory glance. _I guess dark elves must be different here. _

Another guard passed, appraising them. "Keep out of trouble, Elf." He walked on, having barely paused. Drizzt glanced over his shoulder at him.

"The guards here don't seem as…worried as the ones in Whiterun," he said.

"No, Solitude isn't in any immediate danger from the Stormcloaks," Ravenlight answered. "Whiterun might be. And Riften…well, Riften is just a hellhole." She lifted her hand in greeting to a woman manning a stall in a small market area to the side. The woman called back happily. "Solitude can be a bit…snooty. But it's not a bad place."

A golden-skinned woman who looked uncomfortably like the Thalmor fighters walked past, regarding the pair with disdain. Ravenlight nodded to her with an equal disdain, walking on without any worry. Drizzt followed, taking the Bosmer's lack of concern as a good sign.

"Who was that?" he asked quietly, tipping his head back toward her.

Ravenlight glanced over her shoulder to the woman indicated. "She's just one of the nobles; High Elf, bit of a snob. I don't know her personally." She grimaced a little as she turned back to her path. "I don't really want to, either."

"Probably wisest." He quickened his steps to follow her.

As they walked, Drizzt looked around, careful to note the layout of the city. _I thought Whiterun was confusing. This place __is__ even worse. _And, judging from the way she kept stopping to get her bearings, Ravenlight felt the same way.

Finally, she sighed with relief. "There it is. I always get those two mixed up."

"Which two?" Drizzt looked around.

Ravenlight gestured to two similar-looking buildings. "Those. One is a manor house, the other is the Bard's College. The only way to tell the difference is to look for the courtyard in front of the College." She started up the steps, Drizzt following.

Music drifted off the raised courtyard down into the street: a flute and accompanying drum, played by two men. The flute-player was fairly nondescript, but the drummer had a striking appearance: tall and well-built, with white-blond hair and a stripe of black paint across the eyes. Ravenlight lifted her hand to them, but otherwise showed little interest as she entered the building.

"Who are they?" Drizzt asked as he followed, tilting his head to indicate the pair.

"I don't know the flute-player," Ravenlight answered carelessly. "The other one is named Joad. Pretty popular around here, or so I get the impression. He's not much of a conversationalist. Viarmo."

Drizzt jerked around, puzzled by the strange word. Then he realized that she had simply greeted a tall, thin, well-clad, genial-looking Bosmer. He smiled and greeted her in return.

"Ah, Ravenlight! Our wandering adventurer. Find anything worthy of a new song?"

"Eh, not really." She shifted her weight back. "Just a few bandit lairs and some animals. No necromancers or secrets hid in ancient ruins this time. But I found that lute Inge Six-Fingers was wanting."

"Finn's Lute!" Viarmo's eyebrows arched. "Oh, that'll please her to no end. She's been talking about that for a while. Did you have any trouble retrieving it?"

"None at all." Ravenlight laughed self-consciously. "They were...kind of pathetic, actually."

Viarmo laughed heartily. "My girl, I almost envy you that flagrant confidence of yours! There are precious few with that kind of skill. How many bandit lairs have you cleared out by now, anyway?"

"I haven't been counting," she replied, straight-faced.

He shook his head. "I don't know whether you're the most bald-faced braggart to ever walk in here or the best fighter since the Companions." It was then he noticed Drizzt. "Ah! Here's an interesting face. Ravenlight, mind introducing me to your friend?"

"Ah—of course, I nearly forgot." She smiled, beckoning Drizzt forward. "This is Drizzt Do'Urden, a stranger to Tamriel, and my companion on the road—and, I might add, one of the fastest-moving swordsmen I've ever seen. Drizzt, this is Viarmud, head of the Bard's College."

"A pleasure...Drizzt, you said?" Viarmo, remarkable for people who had just heard it, managed to get the sound right. He looked at the Drow curiously. "If I might say, I've never seen a Dunmer with your coloring before; what area of Morrowind are you from?"

Drizzt shook his head. "I'm not from Morrowind."

"Interesting!" Viarmo's eyes lit up. "Where do you hail from?"

"Faerun. It's...some considerable distance from here." He chuckled a little, shifting his weight. "I arrived in Skyrim due to some complications at a nearby mages' camp."

"The things I've heard coming from the Mage's College, I'm not surprised." Viarmo shook his head. "I suppose it's a good thing you arrived in one piece, if that was the case."

"I'm going to go find Inge Six-Fingers," Ravenlight said to nobody in particular. "You two can get acquainted."

* * *

It was perhaps thirty-five minutes before she returned, a slightly bemused expression on her face. Drizzt and Viarmo had moved to one of the benches to be out of the way of the other bards moving through to look at the downstairs library, but they were chatting as eagerly as before: trading various histories, legends, and tales of their differing lands.

_And I don't know yet if Viarmo has figured out that Drizzt is from another world_. Ravenlight watched, smiling a little. If the head of the College did guess... Her eyes wandered over the books on the shelves around her. The stories and fables some of them contained would likely pale in comparison to what Viarmo could spin out of an encounter with a warrior from another world entirely. _I wonder if I should intervene before he has the chance to guess. _She watched them, wondering how she might interrupt without seeming rude.

The answer was given for her when one of the students, an eager-looking young man, dashed down the stairs toward the library and didn't quite dodge all the way around her. He slammed into her shoulder, knocking her back several steps. The clasp on her belt pouch popped open, and something hit the floor and rolled. Ravenlight, used to much harder blows, regained her footing at once. The student, on the other hand, staggered back a few steps, clutching his chest and gasping. Viarmud and Drizzt sprang up, both staring at the two.

"Good heavens! Are you two all right?" Viarmo looked over them anxiously.

"I'm fine." Ravenlight straightened. "I may have dropped something, but that's all." She smiled at the wheezing student. "But I would imagine elven armor isn't the most comfortable thing to run into full-tilt."

He shook his head. "N-no," he managed to gasp out. "It's not."

"Here." She pulled out a familiar pottery bottle. "This isn't a strong healing potion, but it'll take care of that bruise. That's a bad place to get smacked anyway, and an aspiring bard can't afford to be short of breath for an hour or so."

"Th-thank you." He took the bottle and threw down its contents. Drizzt noticed that he grimaced a little, but otherwise seemed unfazed by the taste. He straightened almost immediately. "That did help. Thank you, um..."

"I'm Ravenlight." She chuckled a little. "I look different in normal clothing."

"Normal clothing?" The student frowned, then gasped, his eyes widening. "Oh! I remember! You're the new one, the one who joined at the festival! You were the one who went and retrieved _King Olaf's Verse!_"

She laughed a little, shifting self-consciously. "Yes, that was me. Um...were you coming down to get something?"

"What? Oh!" His eyes widened. "Yes! That book of songs for Mistress Inge! Excuse me, I've got to hurry! She's strict!"

He dashed toward the books, grabbed the one he needed, then raced back up the stairs. Ravenlight would have stared after him for a few moments longer, but a movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention, and she turned to see Drizzt, bending over to retrieve—

"Ahh—don't touch that, please."

He started, turning toward her. "Why not?"

Ravenlight scooped up the round, multifaceted thing that had fallen to the floor. "Because when _I_ picked it up in the frost troll lair where I found it, the blasted thing spoke to me. It's some kind of artifact; the voice called it a beacon, and told me to return it to her temple."

"A beacon?" Viarmo looked at it. "Hmm. If I remember correctly, the old temple to Merida used to have a beacon on the pedestal beneath the statue. But when the temple fell into disuse, it disappeared. Supposedly some bandit or other made off with it."

Ravenlight frowned a little. "Merida, Merida...which one is she again?"

Viarmo stroked his goatee, his eyes narrowed in thought. "Well, no one seems to be certain where her particular interest lies. But it is known that she's the only Daedric prince not considered wholly evil; and she hates undead with a passion." He nodded toward the beacon. "It might be interesting to find out what she wants done with that beacon."

"I might do that, then." Ravenlight slipped the beacon back into her pack. "Do you know where the temple was?"

"Not far outside of Solitude, actually. The road that leads up to it is only about a mile or two down the road from the city." Viarmo lifted a hand in caution. "It's been in ruins for some time, though; and there's no telling what might have moved into it when her worshipers moved out."

* * *

"So," Drizzt said that night as they took a small, out-of-the-way table at the Winking Skeever inn, "I take it we'll be heading to this old temple tomorrow?"

"Probably. But keep it down about that," Ravenlight answered, her voice carefully pitched to be below that of the bard, playing and singing an ode to the Imperials short distance away from them. "Did Viarmo tell you anything about the Oblivion Crisis?"

"He mentioned it, but that was all." Drizzt stirred the steaming bowl of beef stew in front of him. "I was unsure of how much I could safely ask him without revealing where I actually came from. I remember you mentioned it before, though. A line of emperors died out then?"

"Yes. The Dragonborn emperors were all killed, and the last of the line, a priest named Martin, sacrificed himself to help close the last of the gates. But the whole crisis was organized by a cult that worshiped the Daedra prince Mehrunes Dagon. As a result, the worship of _any _daedric prince became suspect. Some fools still cling to them—well," she amended, "they may not _all _be fools. From everything I've read, Azura, the patron and protector of Morrowind, is a decent sort. But that Clavicus Vile...anyone who expects anything from him is setting themselves up for a _nasty _fall."

"Would that be why the temple was abandoned?"

"It's probably connected with that. A group came into being, called the Vigilants of Stendaar. They...let's say take a dim view of any activity connected with the Daedric princes at all." Ravenlight sighed, taking a drink from her tankard. "And I...well. It's pretty stupid, but I'd rather avoid them."

"Why is that?" Drizzt looked at her curiously.

Ravenlight grimaced. "Barely two weeks after I arrived in Skyrim, I was traveling to a small village named Ivarstead. I encountered a group of Vigilants on the road, exchanged a few words, and then...while I didn't exactly follow them, I kept pace with them for a little while. A couple of frostbite spiders attacked them, and I went in to try and help. It was a...a confused mess, and when I took a swing at one of those blasted spiders, I accidentally hit one of _them_." She shook her head, scowling at the memory. "They didn't know it was an accident and turned on me. I ran about three miles over the roughest terrain I could find to shake them off. Thanks to _that_ little incident, when I arrived in Ivarstead, the guards were waiting for me, and I got hauled off to Riften to pay a fine for assault." She skewered a chunk of meat in her bowl.

"I can see why you'd want to avoid them now," Drizzt agreed. "But...how long have you been in Skyrim?"

"Just under a year now." Ravenlight chuckled a little, rubbing her hair. "By now they've probably forgotten me, but...still."

"It's hard to guess just how long someone may keep a memory—and a grudge." Drizzt grimaced as several faces rose up in his memory: everyone who'd ever pursued him to settle a score, real or imaginary. "I've had enemies who hounded me for _years_, even after I nearly forgot the incident that started it."

"Sounds like you've had more than your share of trouble." Ravenlight sighed. "I might ask you a little more about it." She covered her mouth, hiding a yawn. "Tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to eat, then I'm going up to bed. I've already paid for our rooms; yours is across from mine again, upstairs."

Across the room, the bard finished a clear flute tune to applause from the other patrons. She put away her flute and picked up her eight-stringed lute, strumming a few chords on it. "This song," she announced, "is for the hero of Skyrim; our hope for these dark times."

The crowd fell silent, waiting. Drizzt recognized the tune and looked over at Ravenlight.

"_Our hero, our hero claims a warrior's heart," _the woman sang. "_I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes._"

"I wonder," Drizzt murmured as the song continued. "Do they ever consider how _close _to them the Dragonborn comes?"

Ravenlight smiled, and put her finger to her lips.


End file.
